Painting Wood Furniture, Awesome or Terrible?

To most people I tell that I paint furniture I get 1/2 reactions: AWESOME! or Who on earth would paint wood? In one particular blog response, I had a woman practically shriek at me for painting a wood chair white. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I have a take on this argument that moves towards the functionality of a piece through its appearance. If you can improve a pieces function and desire for it to be used from painting, why not paint it? 

Painted pieces can fetch hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Why? It looks modern. It's appealing. It gives new life to an otherwise drab piece of furniture that was more than likely rescued from the curb. Or a dumpster. Or a tag sale. People are taking these incredibly well made pieces of furniture and practically giving them away in exchange for NOT custom wood furniture. By painting the piece and making it modern again, you're giving something incredibly well made a new life. If taken care of, these pieces can be used for upwards of 100 years.

Look at these before and afters. Its like looking at someone's high school prom photo vs. their 10-year reunion photo:

This piece is from 3CITYGIRLSNYC:

These pieces are from Shabby Love: 

Though I love a painted piece of furniture, if a certain piece had that je ne sais quoi in terms of wood grain, I would most definitely abstain from painting and revamp the wood finish. Problem being, this is a much more tedious and difficult process. 

Many times, you're dealing with wood that's been refinished multiple times. When there are multiple finishes you're going to have to go through multiple processes to clean up the wood. You'll need to strip the wood, sand it, and then stain it in a color that brings out the true color of the wood. 

I judge pieces based on what I believe will sell. More times than not, painting furniture wins. What's your take?