I think it's important that people are clear about how they did a route, and I'm sure it does affect the experience and the psychological challenges.

But there's a weird metaphysical extreme where some people seem to feel that if you do a route placing lots of gear or you solo it or you do it with gear that wasn't available to the first ascentionist, it's all the same thing, but if you put a bouldering mat at the bottom, it suddenly becomes a a completely different thing and somehow you haven't really done the route. That, I do not get.