"Perhaps its because there is so little understanding of engineering in general"

You summed it up, nice and fine there.

As I understand, the left half of the human brain is strong in logical correlations and the right half is good in creative output. Maybe I am wrong about which half is what but that is besides the point - for anything that you do, you need both. You think (for argument sake ) that Leonordo was creative ? NO. He was only skillfull enough to recreate exactly what he saw. He was ONLY a human camera or photocopy machine ?

And another argument :

Have you ever wondered where would be the medical profession and the high flying doctors without us engineers ? Jobless I guess ! The current day doctor is just a skilled craftsman (craftswoman) who knows to use the latest tools on humans to earn his living. That he cures in the process is incidental. Sounds rude, I am sure. On the other hand I have seen surgeons use all thier creativity in fixing a multiple fracture or to just to hold a kicking heart in thier hand without damaging it, in a by-pass surgery.

So, Jez you are not alone when you are asked if engineering was an art.

"You only SEE what you KNOW " would be the answer to such critics.

Raghu