Well... great editorial, I'm surprised it didn't spark off more comments!!
From a personal point of view, I use Nhibernate/Active Record an awful lot, so would fall under the 'Dumb Database' brigade. At the same time however, there are significant portions of my application which would just require too much querying/coding only using NHibernate/ActiveRecord, so I tend to implement those as either stored procs or views which I then access through my middle layer.
The great benefit is that front-end developers don't need to know the data model, and I can make changed to the data model (such as splitting tables, etc) without any major repercussions to anyone.
The downside is of course that the middle layer code needs direct table access, and performance is not as good as a pure stored proc/ado .net solution would be. However, for most of our applications these are things I can get around with auditing, proper permission setting and a streamlined middle layer.
In conclusion, I have to agree with Tony's comment:
I am wary of this sort of "best practice" advice. It is usually a device to surreptitiously hide irrational dogma, or else just a vapid reflection of "what Microsoft says". It's the sort of received wisdom that can stifle creativity and innovation.
There is always room for improvement, and both camps will argue that their way is better - I am quite happy treading a nice easy [path down the middle 😛
Regards,
S Armondi