You have a few things going on.
One is the images you see online don't look like that printed. They are brighter, more saturated and have more contrast because of the medium. If I put my print images online, they would look horrible because they are for print. Printed, they are beautiful. It's for just that reason, I have two profiles, online and print. I suspect that many photographers don't make the distinction and put up the print ready images.
Contemporary images are brighter and more contrasty than older images. Advertising and fashion photography have had a lot to do with creating a taste for that. Also, keep in mind that film and equipment have changed over the years and I don't mean just digital. Today's Tri X is not yesterdays film and the list of still remaining films would show the same thing. They have greater dynamic range, better color response, finer grain, etc. Much of what you see as too much perfection is actually the medium has moved beyond limitations of an older time. I can now shoot film at 1600 or 3200 or even 6400 with a quality that couldn't even be dreamed of several decades ago.
Keep in mind, too, that photojournalists shoot under less than optimum conditions and and the demands made on timeliness, etc., don't leave any time for doing the work that we wish we could do. I refer you to the work of W. Eugene Smith, one of the greatest photojournalists, to see the difference between the immediate usage shots he made and the essay work he did when he had full editorial control.
There is also a divide in attitudes, or more accurately, perspectives on photography. Some people almost make a religion out of 'in the camera' and take great pride in what they achieve, which they should. There are others, myself very much included, that try with (I like to believe) a similar level of skill, to get things right in the camera, but that is not the end of it. We may have an image that simply can't be caught at the moment of exposure. Photoshop replaces the darkroom and it's what we use it for. Some people do it to create novelty, others do it because it is the only way to make the statement, but it's always been done. People often cite someone like Ansel Adams, or the Weston's, or someone else as being 'pure' photographers. They actually believe that what they see happened and was complete at the moment of exposure. That simply isn't true.
However, none of the above goes to your question of being '... just late and wanting to join a dying breed?' Mastery and craftsmanship has never been the realm of the masses and the masters and true craftsman have never been a dying breed. There just has never been that many of them. You wouldn't be joining a dying breed, but a rather elite fraternity and the entrance requirements are simple. Learn to work to that standard and hold yourself to it.
There is only one person that can, or should, determine whether you learn to use your equipment well, poorly, or even at all. That is you. I certainly don't have anything to do with it and I don't want to. If you want to learn all the in's and out's, that is solely in your hands.
If you don't want to use photoshop to make up for your deficiencies, then simply don't use it. Figure out what you did wrong, or could have done better, and go back and do it that way. You have a camera in one hand and a mouse in the other. How you use either one of them is totally up to you.
Vance
Addendum:
Okay. It gets a little tiring hearing that 'real', 'legitimate', 'skilled', 'competent', pick you adjective, photographers do everything in the camera. The implication is insulting.
Here are two images. One is straight out of the camera. The conditions are what existed at the time and there is obviously no way to use all the nice lighting equipment everybody says use. The exposure was very carefully chosen to reveal the details where they are revealed and put the tones where they are. The sun is exactly where I wanted it and the flare was carefully controlled.
It was never intended to be the final image.
The second image is the one that I was after from the beginning. There is no way to get to the second image from the first (or any other first) without photoshop.
The intention of the image is what matters. This shot was for a photo essay about an industry moving on, in this case a shipyard, and it's effect on the community.
The intent was to dramatize, emphasize and create a feeling that mirrored the feelings of the people effected by the yards shut down. The grain was also intentionally added, since the original was grainless.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Vance.Lear/TempForAnswer?authkey=nVm0gGWeBjQ
Now, either I am an unskilled snapshooter who uses photoshop to try and make my mistakes better, or I am just someone with a camera who calls himself a photographer and lets the camera do everything and uses a lot of fun filters that all I have to do is click and I get a great picture. I mean, there must be a filter like 'Noire filter for enhancing industrial decay. I'm sure I used it. Must have. Ya think?