A few other examples of "decorative" images where brought forth in the thread, such as photos from travel destinations, etc. While you may personally view these as purely "decorative" they actually serve a great purpose. These are not the type of decorative images bedlam was talking about. Such images should remain in your markup. In fact, I would encourage you to use more of them.

To take the travel destination photos as an example -- by making proper use of the alt and longdesc attributes you can now give the "blind" a glimpse of what the destination looks like. Excellent usage!

Now, to address Matt Probert's post ... I think Bernard Marx conveyed the meaning well. Certainly you should utilize the language to write beautiful content. That's a given. But, always keep your target audience in mind. Write the most beautiful and rich content possible without losing the meaning of the passage. If there are a few words here and there which are not clearly understood by the reader, the context surely will ensure that the meaning is properly conveyed. Just don't use meaningless fancy words just because you know them. That's not beautiful. That's not prose. Balance is key.