My view is that if the simulated sound is made by tuning waveforms so that they sound similar to the original, then this is no worse than making a texture map that that looks similar to a picture seen in a book or on the internet.
If it s done by measuring the amplitude and frequency of the sound spectrum, then this is comparable to producing a texture map by image processing, tracing or editing the original picture.
Yes. that's pretty much my impression as well.