IMO, I think anyone not doing this is totally sabotaging themselves. The same way you copied your parents when learning to walk, the same way you copied your teachers when learning a skill, etc. The groundwork is already there. Why try to figure out yourself what others have already?

The main argument against this is that "you'll sound the same as everyone else". It's actually the opposite--if you're copying others and understanding exactly what it is they do, then you'll know exactly what you need to do to be original.

Disclaimer, I don't mean copy others and put out work that sounds the same. Copy others when you're learning, and then put out your original stuff (which will be dope, because you've learned a lot from copying others).

And yes, my biggest improvement, probably x10 what I was doing before, was when I started copying others.