I believe blur has used standardized materials for years now. When you switch to a "PBR" setup with standardized materials you aren't losing any artistic freedom. It's just a different kind of work. I imagine that we're going to start moving closer to a prop designers and industrial design type workflows in the near future…
Nothing can replace taste like Earthquake said. You still need to make the base textures and believe it or not outsourcing does a horrible job at this idea of base textures. Teaching them to do this is like asking a mechanic to be a dentist. You end up getting junk back.... very basic stuff that just does not work well.…