Stock Photography - Can Transformed Photographs Work

The first thing that struck me about Stock Photography sites was that they encourage photographs of very high technical quality and often see transformed photographs as somehow inferior. I was therefore worried whether I would be able to sell transformed photographs through stock sites. Now that I have a significant number of sales I am able to look at what I have sold.

55% 0f the images I have sold were transformed photographs like the batch below

while 45% were original unmodified photographs like these

I suspect this is much to the dismay of some of the photographers who inhabit some of the forums, arogantly pushing almost unachievable quality standards, bemoaning the ability to "cover up" poor quality while still achieving desirable artworks.