Hey Jon...
Yeah, good point here. I think, personally, I think of webforms as a different type of 'thing' than other content. Here's why:

• Webforms aren't really nodes in the traditional sense. Therefore, it immediately makes me think of them differently.
• Webforms, in my eyes, are not 'content' on the site. They're a method of data collection. Think about how the user interacts with them...there's no other node types where a user is entering data on the 'front end' of the node. So, the fact that they're forms (and that's their whole purpose) puts this more in the category of the site's main contact form, for me. I suppose I sorta see this question as "if we use nodes instead of webform, should we use nodes instead of the main contact form?" Probably not.
• Webform does what it does and there's usually no reason to expand it/customize it. The flexiblity in nodes is crucial because I want them to do lots of different things. But, again, a webform mostly does the same thing all the time: collects data from a user, emails it, and saves it in the database. We don't deviate from that too often.
• Webform does alot of work for you and customizes it to the task. Things like storing, emailing, browsing the data how it does makes it perfectly built for the job...that would be time consuming to replicate in nodes.

I think this is an interesting question that I've never asked...but after thinking thru it, I'm still convinced that, since webforms aren't really 'content' like other things are, I'm ok with webform.module not being as flexible as CCK would allow.

Thanks for your reply. You made an excellent case for using webforms for what it does best. I made the mistake of writing it off because it did not do what I needed it to do in the case of accumulating data which could be presented in views. Your comments made me realize that I was wrong to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water and use it for what is does best. Thanks