I've been think along these lines recently, but perhaps more thinking selfishly about what i can learn from good architectural photographers. It seems that what the architectural photographer seeks to do is to distill the image of a building down to an aspect that interests him/her. It must be aesthetically pleasing, but also be educational to the viewer in that it describes what the building is like.
In the modeling (sketchup) stage of my work, I am trying more and more to visualise (in my head) the building as I want to present it while I explore and build it up on the screen in front of me. I sometimes even try to imagine myself waking round it as if i had my camera in my hand! I think composition is probably the one area where the majority of 3d visualisers fall down compared to traditional photography. 3d design maybe isnt free enough yet to allow the amount of exploration that you need.
I suspect I'm slightly off track here compared to where you were going! Are you talking about students of architecture? Certainly the act of modeling a building does build up an appreciation of potential problem areas and conflicts in design. I'm still a bit undecided about the tuition of 3d modeling in architecture school, when I was a student we just made models with our hands, and i'm grateful for that and what it taught me! There was an interesting post on archinect recently about someone arguing for architects to leave the 'rendering' to the pros!
12 Reasons to Refuse to Render! | YOUNG ARCHITECT
I'm doing what I'm doing these days because it took me 4 years to realize that the list was all true and then i had no choice but to get out and go freelance! Thankfully though, I love what i do!