Also, I didn't say that it should SUBSTITUTE imagination - that's silly. Die rolls don't make a story; the players (and here I include the GM) do. As has already been said, I don't see why having a solid system that helps the process of creativity to be a bad thing.
I am a professional writer and editor, as well as a teacher of it in university. One of the first things we teach creative writing students is not how to be "creative;" that will come later. What we generally teach them is structure. It is working WITHIN structure that true creativity comes. It does from my own work. I'll give an example:
In poetry, most actual, real-life poets give themselves "tasks" to complete in their work. One I like to use with my classes is the following: take 4 words, any you like. Now, those are the last words of each line. Write me 16 lines, each with those same last words.
This is, in its way, what any good roleplaying game does. It gives you certain strictures (in genre, rules, reward systems, etc) and says "Now work within these lines and see what you can make." There is a reason we call this "gaming" and not "freeform theater." Poker, backgammon, chess, all of our games work on this principle.
Problem is, one set of strictures does not work for everyone. As an example, MGT has certain presumptions set in itself. Within that framework, I feel my creativity comes out. I have plenty of things to hang my hat on, so to speak, that make sense to me. For you, perhaps, CT does that, and since you are comfortable with that, then you follow it.
To take the idea further, Hemingway usually wrote standing up. Why? Something about this activity made him feel more creative. So, whenever and wherever he wrote, he had to have space for a high table.
Gaming with RPGs is the same. Some sets of things bring out creativity and dampens it in others. Sometimes genre is the issue, sometimes even something like layout of text can be the problem.
So, if MGT works to bring out that creativity, and lets the GM "get on with it," and at the same time helps his or her players do the same, then what's bad about it exactly? Why does it harm you? CT is a great game that does it for you. That's awesome. But it doesn't do it for me, for the reasons I outlined. It once did, but I have changed in the 20 years since I started playing, and it doesn't anymore. MGT though, gives me that feeling I had before, and gives me some new stuff which I dig to run with.
BTW, looks like I'll be running Traveller again next month. To a whole bunch of people who have no idea what it is, except one guy, who said at first, "I tried it once but it sucks that my two characters died during character generation! What a crappy game." I told him that that wasn't totally true and anyway, the version we're going to play only maims you.
