I once did a recording for a guy (a friend) who wanted real drums, but then with the help of the producer proceeded to bury them in the mix and make them completely indistinguishable from the samples they used as sound replacements. Completely pointless! That was the last time I worked for free as it was a total waste of my time and they should have just programmed the drums.
That being said, while there are some great drum programmers out there, samples will never completely replace real drummers.
Samples suit some styles of music, as do high quality, fully electronic kits with good quality sound libraries.
But I'd love to see the sort of person who can replicate Vinnie Colaiuta or Dave Weckl and capture the spirit of their playing.
I'd rather listen to a real drummer any day, but I also acknowledge that samples and programmed drums suit some styles (mainly modern styles that I dislike anyway
) better than a real drummer.
And there are some really great programmers out there - Carl King (under the pseudonym Sir Millard Mulch) once did a massive (and weird) album many years ago where he programmed drums and it was very difficult to distinguish some of the programmed parts from the parts he used real drummers such as Marco Minneman and Virgil Donati for.