I've found some of the posts above to be somewhat depressing. The old "I don't care about tradition, I just care about catching fish" argument is so lame it barely deserves comment, but here goes. After you've caught a few fish in your life, say more that 10, it stops being all about catching fish after a while. I know that under most circumstances I can put on a foam ant or beetle and catch a rising fish. Maybe not quite all, but most. Let's say for the sake of argument I had a lure made of foam that would catch a fish every time, like a Banjo Minnow (DRIVES FISH CRAZY!!). I could see myself going out maybe once and catching lots of fish, and never going back ever again. After a certain point, you put various limits on yourself to keep the challenge going. I mean, if you just want to just catch fish, bring dynamite. Are we on the bass tour or are we fly fishermen? Fly fishing should be a contemplative, intellectual pursuit at its best, one in which the fly fisher tries to meet the wily trout in his element, becoming part of that element for a time. Natural materials are part of it. Nothing against foam, or flash, they're fine too. But I object to taking the easy way out. There will come a day, soon, where all the foam lures will be made by machine. Fly "tying" will be a thing of the past. But traditionalists like me will continue to tie flies using natural materials, because for us, our pastime is about much more than just catching fish.
Eric