Could be he already had the expensive camera so he's using what he had?
It'd be a good way to build up your wrist strength, too.
Anyway, I think that many of the photographers you see under the various ICM tags are using DSLR or mirrorless cameras. I have noticed that, for long exposure photos at least, I used to get smoother results from my old Sony NEX-7 (now departed) than I do from my iPhone. (That was shooting without camera movement.) And looking at the
seagull studies by Anne McGrath on Flickr (taken with a Nikon), I notice that she doesn't get the stair-step effect I often see in similar phone photos -- hers are all very smooth.