Bonnie,
It has been my experience that DBAs *prefer* access to *their* SQL Server to be only through SPs ... that way the DBA has better control over access to the SQL Server. Giving access only through SPs means that there are no other permissions they have to worry about granting ... Let's just hope that "SP is always best" doesn't boil down to this. ;-)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1