To Manipulate or Not to Manipulate?

Before the digital revolution, photographers had it quite easy, I think. You knew what your subject was, now, how do I approach it? became the question. Color, or b&w? Slow or fast film? With digital, you have the freedom to shoot color, and convert to b&w or other tones later; to manipulate contrast (which I sometimes like), to add countless filters and layers, etc. if you decide it better suits the image. This has both advantages and disadvantages. While it has created a safety net of sorts, I think it has also become a crutch for some who just shoot without discretion, knowing they can "doctor" all those mediocre images later. In my experience, converting or manipulating an image in any way never saved the bad ones. Sometimes it made the good ones better, but the bad ones were still bad, just in a worse way.

Sometimes, though, I can't decide between color and b&w (or another tone). Sometimes an image looks great both ways, though the feeling conveyed is different.