I'm still back trying to imagine what Mel Stabin actually meant by the idea attributed to him that began this thread, and how it relates to photography. Stabin produces paintings which he offers for sale, and it seems probable that the people who buy his books and who attend his workshops expect to use the skills and knowledge gained thereby to produce paintings. So I doubt he really means that it's the process that matters, not the product. I'd be inclined to take the statement as rhetorical flourish, not as meaningful information.
If process really mattered more than product, he would be recommending painting on glass, so it could be washed off after enjoying the process, or on old newspapers, so it could be thrown away after; why waste good watercolor paper, if the goal isn't to produce a painting but just to enjoy the "process"? Or (to carry the analogy to the point where it matches the idea of photographing without film in the camera) paint without using paint. Just move the brush around; if the goal isn't to create a painting, why bother with materials at all? (And even when such exercises--moving the brush without using paint-- are employed when learning the process, as in learning how to wield the brush for sumi painting, the ultimate goal is to eventually make paintings that are supposedly improved by the discipline of the exercise). I can't speak for Stabin, of course, but I think most painters would say that process is important only as a means to an end: the creation of a painting, not as an end in itself.
In photography of course, there are two parts to the process: the making of the negative and the making of the print. The OP seems to be suggesting that for him, the making of the negative is the important part of the process; he's satisfied when he's done that and doesn't feel any great urgency to go to the second step. I have no argument with that point of view, though I can't identify with it. For me, making the print is the important part of the process, and in fact it doesn't matter much to me how the negative is made.*
The print matters to me, but the process of making the print is essential to the print. You can't have one without the other. It's that thing about the air and lungs Vaughn mentioned.
* cliche-verre (photographic print from painted negative)
Katharine