First, yes I am a fan of some of the what people are calling "original" WED attractions. However, I don't totally agree with this entire moral superiority over something spring boarding from a movie versus something from a general genre.
There is a right way of doing things though and a wrong way. Marketing deciding to mandate a quick change for a few bucks obviously is not an original. At the opposite end of the spectrum I find it extremely hard to turn around and say Tony Baxter's vision for DLP wasn't original because he threw Tomorrowland and the Jules Verne's IP into a blender. The Nautilus walk through doesn't suddenly lose its lustre because he didn't reinvent the entire wheel from scratch and write his own story about a steam punk oceaneer. I don't look to Indy and think this isn't as original of an attraction as Pirates because someone produced a movie of it first. Likewise I don't look to Mysterious Island and think it is bogged down in its tie to literature.
The same things apply in my mind to an IP when imagineers are actually let loose to create something from scratch, just because there is an end goal request (i.e. please make a cake, or use Star Wars) doesn't suddenly mean the process can't be as original as them spontaneously deciding to make a cake on their own. The problem is when the recipe itself starts being passed from on high, not the IP request.
People are laser focused on the IP, that's really not the main issue though. It's when the creative reins are too ham fisted to save a few bucks.
