TEXTURE MAPS VS. PROCEDURAL TEXTURES

Texture maps requires us to find such maps (presumably from the real world). This is esthetically displeasing: aren't we trying to produce synthetic imagery in the first place? Procedural textures is purely synthetic.

But since we are trying to recreate the real world, presumably, any texture map we want can be found without too much fuss. This might not be so obvious using procedures.
-- E.g., it is not clear how to produce the texture of orange skins, even if we know how to produce the texture of wood grain.

If we know how to procedurally produce a certain kind of texture, it is probably not difficult to produce all kinds of variants (by changing some parameters). This ability may be important.
-- And to produce large samples of textures.
-- The space needed to store the procedures is probably small compared to the storage of texture maps.