French vs Italian, The Epic Showdown

There's another question I get that I feel deserves a real answer and not a smart ass one like in my earlier post. Do I prefer French or Italian cuisine? That's a tough one. To me it's kind of like the Beatles vs Stones argument. There's no right or wrong answer, can't I like both? If I had to answer I'd give the slight edge to Italian though. I was originally trained in classic French but I jumped the fence into Italian a few years ago. To me it's more soulful. French cooking has very strict rules, If you substitute an ingredient or veer off an established technique everyone will jump in your shit and say it's not a "true" (insert French dish here) no matter how good it is. The Italians are more concerned with making shit taste good than following pre-written, unbreakable rules. Also there is an emphasis on simplicity with Italian cuisine that I like. Taking simple and usually few ingredients and bringing them to their utmost potential. This idea is evident in their ingredients. Take garlic for example. From raw to roasted there is a galaxy of flavors that can be coaxed out of one simple ingredient. It's no wonder why the Italians embraced the tomato when it was brought to Europe while the rest of the continent took at least a hundred years to get hip to it. Raw, sauteed, roasted, dried, cooked down into a sauce, there's no end to the things you can do with that one ingredient. Thank kind of thinking appeals to me. Christ, look at pasta! It all comes from the same dough but I don't think anyone can name every type of pasta there is and it's applications are near limitless. If you amassed a huge pile of exotic ingredients I would be very interested in what the French chef would do with them, but if you took a tomato, a carrot, and a potato and nothing else the Italian chef would stomp his ass. He would probably have fifty dishes or more that rock balls before he ran out of ideas.
Even Italian chefs will privately admit that all western cuisines owe at least a small debt to the French however. They wrote the books and set the standards that all others adhere to, at least some degree. Take mirepoix for example. The French invented it and everyone uses it including the Italians. The same goes for roux. The French's relentless pursuit of perfection of technique is something that everyone interested in food should admire. I also believe in the French notion that if you cram enough butter into something it'll taste good eventually. If the Italians were willing to accept butter as olive oil's equal than there would be no contest in my opinion. It would be Italy all the way. Olive oil is phenomenal but so is butter damn it! Mounting sauces with butter is probably the thing I miss the most since I switched to Italian cooking. Italian chefs use butter but they don't have a love affair with it like the French do.
Both Cuisines are great but it's Italian for me. The fact that I can take semolina, eggs, and water and combine them into a dough with possibilities that I would have to live to be a thousand to exhaust is the clincher for me. Also the fact that I went to Paris years ago and I thought it sucked. The whole city smells like fucking feces and it was the only place in the world (pre 9/11) that I got into fistfights just for being American. The French may be able to cook but they can't take a headbutt worth a fuck let me tell you! They'll talk shit and get in your face and shove you but a forehead to the nose sends those cunts running like little girls! That shit happened to me three times when I was in Paris. OK I'm rambling now, end of post.
The chef hates you.