A substantial fraction of our admins are largely worthless at writing
articles. In fact, there's a good argument for the position that people who can write articles should not be admins: we need them writing articles, not running around breaking up fights.
Kelly
I think that admin powers are primarily editing tools which, secondarily, can be used for community governance. Someone does not have to be an admin to make peace and sort out fights - in fact, the only admin tools that can be used to break up fights are to lock a page (which does not fix a fight, just moves it to the talk page) and to threaten blocks for misbehaviour, which is actually something that the blocking policy opposes. People can be effective mediators and peacemakers without admin tools.
On the other hand, if you do a lot of editing you will find yourself needing to delete pages (when you create a page or a category with a typo in the name, for example) or edit protected pages (like DYK and the Main Page), or have a look at a deleted page that you want to re-create (especially if the page was speedied).
That said, of course, I agree with Geni that there is lots for an admin to do even if s/he does not create pages or add much in terms of content. And again, and RFA is really a matter of posing the question to the community - do we trust this person not to abuse admin tools. In the case of Acetic Acid, while I have not voted, I have seen a lot of contributions by this editor, I have seen them around a lot, and I think I have enough information to have an opinion as to whether they would or would not "behave themselves" - without having ever used irc.
Ian (Guettarda)