Thank you for your reply.
My opinion is based on the lack of education many benders have or care to study towards.
Many take an existing item, mod it somewhat, then call it art. 
I understand the fun of it. That's not my point.
My point is that when I was 10, I used to circuit bend things myself.
From adding external pots, putting my finger over traces, adding photocells or whatever I had at the time. It WAS fun. No argument there.

But I realized not much later that this was a dead end and so started studying electronics.
This has lead to a career where I am now responsible for other's well being. Ie: true social impact.

I could not have obtained that level of responsibility if I had shunned true knowledge and only continued believing I was some inspired artist.

Development of technology does not come by slightly modifying existing designs that are otherwise not understood by the tech or artist doing such mods.
That is only the domain of the self-indulgent or artistically minded individual.
It has little worth to the serious musical population and are considered toys- not serious effects, instruments or even sound effects.

In other words, it's like being a DJ.
DJ's don't make their own music, they chop, sample and play other's music.
They do this mostly because it's far, far easier than learning how to play an instrument well.
But if everyone did this, there would be no music to source from. 

Same for circuit bending.
No circuit bender ever designed the Speak n Spell or other devices circuit benders have chosen to mod.
The guys that designed that stuff knew solid electronics and indeed are supplying the circuit benders their source materials. 
So circuit bending is basically derivative and non-orignal. 
The only claim to originality, like a DJ, is what a bender does beyond what it was originally designed to do.
If a DJ loops a chorus 10 times, that doesn't make them a songwriter because they changed the original format of the song.

DJ's and circuit benders embrace their art because that's the best they can do with what they've got. 
It's self-limiting and not a good path to building things from scratch nor helping society's needs.
No circuit bender will be asked to build medical, scientific or consumer electronics. 
It's very easy to draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
It's very difficult to paint the painting under that mustache. 
You'll notice that there's few paintings out there with just mustaches.

Finally, I do not believe circuit bending is truly part of the DIY community at all.
The DIY community, for the large part, is made up of EE's that understand what they're doing and why.
Many design their circuits from scratch with discrete components. 
With that, they have choices.
They can make their circuit do what they want and package it however.
They have more artistic freedom and ability to build vertically on their creations.
Knowledge is power.
No one can convince me that circuit benders are providing any truly measurable impact on socialism, pollution, commerce or any other tangible issue.
It is part of the denial they share when defending their work as meaningful or important.
It's an attempt to validate what society, musicians, consumers and engineers on the whole don't find useful.

Really... it's a self-indulgent dead-end.
My 2 cents.