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I've heard the story too many times a person wants real plants, goes out and spends 20.00 on them only to have them die because of improper substrate, lighting, and nutrients.
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Yes, you are 100% right. Anyone who has a plain gravel substate and the standard one tube light you get with a hood will be pretty much destined to fail in growing plants.
However, the low-tech approach is very different from just sticking any old plant into random gravel with any old lighting. It requires just as much knowledge and understanding of how things work as the high-tech approach. (More or less, it requires reading and understanding Diana Walstad's book.) It's just far less expensive, far less work, and, as you say, you can't grow as many different kinds of plants.
I don't feel limited by the fact that I can't grow some plants. I take the same approach with our garden outside. We don't water or fertilize anything, and we live in a fairly dry area (yes you can get dry areas in England!). So we only plant things that will grow in this environment. Furthermore, we don't plant things that grow too fast, because then you have to spend all your time with the gardening tools hacking them back. I enjoy looking through the gardening books for things that will grow will in our climate. We don't have a showcase garden by any means, but it looks decent, and it takes very little time to maintain.
If people want to go the high-tech route, they are welcome to. I am often amazed by the photos I see of high-tech planted tanks. They are downright beautiful, sheer works of art. I also know they are 100% not for me. I do have the money to do that sort of stuff if I wanted to, but I definitely don't have the time nor the incliniation to maintain that sort of tank, just as I don't have the time nor the inclination to spend all my weekend in the garden watering, fertilizing, and pruning garden plants. Some people do (that's the way my father-in-law spends his weekends).
What I want to emphasize in these posts is that there is a low-tech route that is just as successful as the high-tech route, if you define successful as having attactive healthy growing plants in the aquarium. And I will reiterate what Simpte says, that you MUST have proper lighting, substrate, and nutrients to grow plants. It's just that you can grow plants (not all plants, and they won't grow very fast) with a good substrate (this is required no matter what route you take!), moderate lighting (~2WPG), no CO2, and little in the way of ferts. But, I will reiterate another thing that Simpte says, these things have to be in balance. Too much of one thing and all you'll grow is algae.