Buying Skills in Runescape

Steve raised an old question about "people buying skill capes". Take a look (and there is also a video guide for shark fishing, do not attempt). I partially agree, but not quite. Here is the response I posted in Steve's blog.

I agree, that accusing people in buying skills is not good. No matter, how much money you spend on a skill you still have to put a LOT of time and effort into raising it to 99.

However, some skills can be raised significantly faster and easier if you are able to buy supplies and the "getting the money to buy the supplies takes time and work" argument is not really valid. For instance, I am buying and burning magic logs to raise firemaking, but I am also making about 3M a day merchanting (or speculating, if you will) and it takes me 10 minutes per day to do so. Comparing it to the way I raised Thieving, when I get the Firemaking cape, I will have to admit that I bought it.

Lucky drops and old and dusty party hats can replace "speculation on the GE" too. My point is that it is not necessarily takes a lot of time and effort to make a lot of money in Runescape and therefore skills that can be bought may be indeed a bit de-valuated.

But what do you think about this issue? Can the skills be divided like that?