The East Coast attitude seems to be that writtens are okay. If you listen to the Cassidy-Freeway battle, which though not nearly as legendary as the Heiro-Hobo battle, is maybe the closest recent equivelant, it's all writtens.

Shit, if you listen to the "freestyles" on mixtapes, they're clearly not off the top. And that's cool. I don't care either way. But my understanding of the word freestyle has always been that it's not written.