I tend to follow along with Lagerfeld and McQueen.
I can hand sew, start to finish, a Chanel style jacket in about 96 hours (I am working on making it to that 80 hour mark, lol). I can machine sew one in about 18. Or I can merge the two techniques and do the same in about 35-50 (depending on trim). Thing is, the hand sewn and the one machine constructed and hand manipulated don't look much different from each other.
What I have always found funny about this argument is Worth is largely considered to be the end all to haute couture. Most of his garments were partially constructed on machines (at least the ones I have seen the interiors to). If it was good enough for him to be couture, then it's good enough for me making my own stuff.