I used to somewhat snobbishly think effects do not matter (can always add them later). This is true but overall not a good attitude.
I most definitely have that "bad attitude," as you say, and it's due to the fact that I don't need more than reverb and a little bit of delay. The somewhat simple sounds I design and use are created with the utmost care and attention to detail and nuance. As a result, these are emphatically
finished sounds and need no effects in order to serve the purpose for which they've been designed. However, I always use reverb because I think a dry synthesizer sounds excessively electronic, and reverb goes a long way in warming it up and giving it a spacious environment of its own, just as even a symphony sounds better in a large hall, or a pipe organ in a cathedral. But note that these latter are already excessively high-quality sounds from the start.
Contrary to this, I hear countless synthesizer patches in demos on YouTube that - in my opinion - are overtly
unfinished patches, that lack character, warmth, and an in-built expressiveness, but are processed through mountains of effects, as if these could somehow compensate for poor sound design. In fact, a Big Sky
can fairly compensate for poor sound design, because it has the power to bury and, therefore, hide a lack of effort or a lack of ability on the part of the synthesist, and that's a common problem in synthesis
from my perspective.My preference is to have only delay within a synthesizer's engine, but I could live without that as well. I definitely prefer not to have onboard chorus, phaser, and flanger, because these pose temptations to go in sonic directions I neither like nor respect. And yet, adding them is so easy and gives an instant "coolness" to a patch, such as impresses other synthesists and wins their praise. No thanks. Keep those effects; I don't want them in my music.
In addition, there's always the possibility that one will not like the character of a particular onboard effect found on an instrument. That's never been an issue for me, since even the Evolver's outdated delay is sufficient for my needs. But I've read many comments from synthesists who, for example, didn't like the particular reverb on the Prophet-6 and would prefer another. That makes sense, if you have a specific sound in mind.
And last of all, there are those who dislike effects altogether and prefer to hear the raw unprocessed sound of a synthesizer.
So, there are many reasons why a "good" and "non-snobbish" attitude could include the conviction that effects are not essential to quality sound design.
It may seem misplaced in the inherently complicated synthesizer domain, in which quantity and complexity are often held to be the chief virtues, but some of us do prefer simpler synthesizers. Some of us actually like to have fewer options in a sound engine - only the essentials - and are even inspired by the challenge of limitation as an aid in drawing out better and less technologically-saturated music.