Until the advent of the professional single lens reflex camera around 1960, there wasn't much choice in high quality interchangeable lens compact cameras. WW2 had seen off most of Leica's competition, shipped off to Ukraine or dead in the rubble. The Japanese had a brief window to take Leica on and did very well at it, considering they had to develop the technology, the lenses and compete with three decades of PR, but SLRs put the Japanese rangefinder on the back burner with the exception of fixed lens point and shoots. Many of the best shots since then were taken on SLRs and TLRs especially in photojournalism, reportage and the commercial sector.
So the 35mm rangefinder's brilliant image makers were mostly working pre-war and during the war years with Leica and Contax, and in the immediate post war years with Leica because there wasn't a lot of choice. Some very good photographers have worked with Leica since then, especially in the street photography idiom where size matters, but there was more choice and photographers exercised it by buying other brands. Leica is by no means synonymous with fine photography, not even fine film photography, and contemporary names are likely to be found using all kinds of digital and larger format film cameras. A look at Leica forums will confirm kitten and flower photography is at least as well represented as any other brand.
There are a number of reasons for buying a new film or digital Leica camera: because you want a modern antique, because you already have a set of lenses that fit the cameras, because money is no object and you want to try one, because you want bragging rights at the pub. The appearance of the photographs it produces is not one of them.