Jimmy-
I agree with this assessment. I would add to this a general concern that our use of images under "fair use" prevents the rise of a stronger demand for really free sources of images.
I believe this argument is fallacious, since most of our instances of fair use are in cases where it isn't realistically possible to get a "really free" source. We're not going to put up an image of a famous building as fair use, because we can get a Wikipedian to make a photograph. But we can't make free photographs of deceased celebrities in any appealing state.
Of course, we can try to get permissions (and we can, and should, try to do so with all of our fair use images), but our main problem with doing so is that we effectively require the copyright holders to relicense their works under the FDL or to put them in the public domain. Most people aren't going to do either.
Regards,
Erik