Read in a french accent, it becomes, "SEOs are gross hackers", which is certainly what comes to mind when you have to muddle through a page of w3schools or some other SEO pumped spam-sites results on your way to some actual content.
Some have said that SEOs were not hackers because they could not code, I would argue they are not hackers because their work is all about decreasing the signal/noise ratio for the sake of profit. Hackers should know better.
For hackers the web is a way to free information, not a gimmick to make a quick buck by polluting other people's information streams.
Perhaps you focus too much on the bad apples? Anyone can call himself/herself an SEO, just like the barrier to entry for programming jobs is low. Not every programmer writes malware, just like not every SEO creates spam sites.
At least two major things you gloss over, don't give SEO's enough credit for is:
1) Analytics and market research
2) Accessibility.
Improving quality of content and on-page SEO follows well established accessibility guidelines. SEO's can make sites better for all users: humans AND search bots. With a fine SEO'd site, you'd be able to navigate it and consume it, while being blind, drunk or using noscript.
If you have a good (online) product or service, it would be a crime against the efforts that went into creating them, to forget SEO and online marketing. You'd be decreasing the perceived value. You'd give the edge to your competition.
The grossness from SEO comes from people that know just enough SEO techniques, but not how to properly implement them. They hear: Links increase ranking, so they start blog spamming links. Or they hear: fresh content does well in search engines, so they article spin some RSS feeds.
Search engines are for the most part black boxes, even to white hat SEO's. To play it safe you have to align yourself with the vision of Google. To study their papers and patents. To follow their engineers every word. To predict their next moves. To test out your hypothesis. Familiarize yourself with new (sometimes undocumented) mark-up etc.
Yet good SEO practice hasn't changed all that much in the recent years. Adhere to the Google Webmaster Guidelines [1] and the Stanford Credibility Guidelines [2] and you'll get mighty far. Both sets of guidelines increase the quality and the profit part is indirect.
Some have said that SEOs were not hackers because they could not code, I would argue they are not hackers because their work is all about decreasing the signal/noise ratio for the sake of profit. Hackers should know better.
For hackers the web is a way to free information, not a gimmick to make a quick buck by polluting other people's information streams.