That said, I'm probably more 2.

As to the modeler vs programer...I've done both commercially and for free....it doesn't take long to write code to accomplish a single task.. especially if you've done it before. Art on the other hand takes time to do everything bcs 1 misstep or for forgotten area in previous pipeline steps could result in a lot of lost time. Detailing takes time and have you ever tried finding proper import/export tools for random tool x?