I'm a samplist from day one, however the right synths and vsti's can create some funk if you know what you're doing.
I actually find the two kind of similar, with sampling, you dig through vinyl until you find a sound that catches your ear, then you sample, chop, and play it back. With synths, you go through a few hundred presets until you find the sound you like, tweak it, and play it back.
The no lawsuits and full publishing from synth based production is a good thing if you're trying to feed your family off of this music...
At the same time, it would be nice if the government would have a law that you can sample 2.5 seconds or less per song per record, as long as it was over twenty years old or some shit like that...