To quantize or not to quantize

Hi all,

So i just got my hands on some CDJ 350s and have just really started.

I am really enjoying it a lot and am learning a lot beat matching and generally not being able to rely on a lot of the 'helpful' digital features.

Another one of these helpful digital features is quantize/snap. Without it, I'm finding I have to be bang on with the beat and even then most of the time I need to nudge the jog wheel.

When i get better gear (probably vci 400), I know all those features will be there for me. I do feel like it is 'cheating' a little though and not sure if i would use it even if i had it.

Cheating is probably a bad word - but there is a trade-off between the musical creativity that digital aid allows and losing musical integrity/technical ability and I don't want to become a purely push button DJ who can't mix without all the digital aids.

Question is where do you guys believe quantise sits on this spectrum? I definately want to keep beatmatching, even if just for my own enjoyment and am not really looking to go down the midi fighting controllerist route but wonder if I should just let quantize take care of the phase once beat matched. I do believe ultimately a DJ's role is to make good music but I don't believe it should be done at the expense of musical integrity in its entirety. And I do believe there is a lot of skill with the beat mashing and controllerist stuff but to me that's a different beast (which I would sync and quantise the hell out of).

As an aside, I wish Pioneer never developed a sync or quantise feature. Or even a bpm counter. Leave the digital DJing for laptops and keep the CDJs truer to vinyl. That way, if you used CDJs, you could bank on the DJ having some real DJ chops.