Nope, thats not where I got it from. It really depends what your looking for in terms of a website. If you are looking for cheap and cheerfull to represent your business through the website, the free templates would do the job just fine, which I am not knocking. But if you want something designed to your spec, a web designer would be the way to go.
It's like comparing a Vax carpet cleaner (which will clean a carpet to some extent) to a truckmount. It all depends on what you want and what the budget is.
Cheers