what has been said in this post is pretty unanimous (think thats right).

using presets are a good pre-cursor to get a tune going, invariably though, ppl want to stand out and in this respect a preset is twisted to fit.....

some presets that come with a synth - be it hard or soft, are outstanding and as Z has said inspire creation, thus presets are extremely important in knowing just what can be achieved with a synth in some occasions. I therefore do not agree with just getting a synth and deleting all the presets (IMHO ).