Do you have an example where the skeuomorph may work better than a re-imagined design?
Re: Is using skeuomorphs a 'design crutch'?
My personal opinion is that you should be fulfilling the potential allowed by a medium, without compromising function. A lot of people think a leather texture in a twitter app is skeumorphism, but it's not. A leather texture in a calendar app that has digitally flipping pages is skeumorphism.
Two things to consider are experience and utility. In design, a lot of the time you are finding a happy medium between the two. Is the experience of digitally flipping a page in your calendar wort the tradeoff of a modern interface? Skeumorphism is appropriate sometimes, but not always. Is SM used as a crutch sometimes? Yes. But it's also used extremely well in other scenarios.
I think Luxylight (luxylightapp.com) is a good example. It looks kinda like a car key fob. Are there better ways to do a flashlight app? Maybe. But this interface is intuitive and I knew exactly what to do when I opened it for the first time. That experience and design doesn't get in the way of the function here (turning my iPhone's flash on), therefore it is good design.
I believe that there isn't a black/white argument about whether it's better to use skeumorphic principles or interface-specific constraints in most situations. I think both can co-exist. Frankly, I think you can have a flashlight app that is skeumorphic and an app that is simple and flat, and both can function just as well as the other.
That is one of the better examples I've seen. The skeuomorphs, while ornamental, do provide guidance. The 'grips' on the sides made me want to hold it firmly in one hand, and the buttons are clearly made for thumbs. I like this a lot.
This is definitely a case where re-inventing the wheel isn't necessary, or even valuable.
Matt Kump? added Joe Critchley and Kyle Wayne Benson.
I'm a fan of any skeumorph that helps the viewer have a more emotional or human experience, especially in rigid or foreign environments.
My only hesitation comes because of this insight from Paul Rand:
"...for an advertisement to hold its own in a competitive race, the designer must steer clear of visual cliches by some unexpected interpretation of the commonplace."
Part of a designer's job is the "unexpected interpretation", and skeumorphisms can get in the way of a reevaluation of the design problem. Perhaps there is a better way of connecting the viewer with the content that is overlooked for the sake of familiarity.
