Well, I was going for the lost, trashed city too, but after seeing the I am Legend, I give up lol. Puts mine to absolute shame. And IMO, well placed sprites can look much better than well blended terrain. Sure you can make bigger walls, but they're plain and boring. Sure you can make different transitions between different terrain types, but they're still boring transitions. Sprites allow you to give your terrain character, like how his buildings had the foliage running up them and such. Waterfalls look like crap without sprites. I'll take a sprite whored terrain that looks amazing over a boring well blended map anyday.

I think terrain needs a balance of both blends and sprites. I agree that blends can only go so far and that's where you use sprites to add little details and stuff. However, I don't think sprites should just be used as an excuse to cover up lazy and poor blending.