Should I be using UserControls for my Views instead of DataTemplates?

I was reading this post and the author makes the suggestion that using DataTemplates to define a ViewModel is a lunatic's way to do it (#7). I do that all the time, is it really that bad?

<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:MyViewModel}">
    <Grid>
        ...
    </Grid>
</DataTemplate>

Most of my Views are simply a ResourceDictionary that defines a DataTemplate or two. To me, it makes much better sense to do this than creating a UserControl for every ViewModel. Why would I want the extra layer in WPF's visual tree when it's not needed? And why would I want to take care of mapping ViewModels to Views when a DataTemplate does that for me? Is this syntax really a "lunatics approach"?