3.0 Paul Rand says (again)

Don't try to be original just try to be good. Sometimes it's naive but its true. Without aesthetics you can't find the truth to do things with quality ... Art is an idea that is found its perfect form but too many possibilities. No matter how perfectly you do something it still can be improved.

I think there's a distinction between 'imitation' and 'inspiration'. Using other designers as inspiration, you could create your own stuff you cannot always do something exactly the same because we're all different. Of course, unless you did it deliberately. So I guess my hypothesis at this point would be yes, imitating others could lead you to your own design, unless it was your intention to copy from one. Originality doesn't seem like a huge big deal to a lot of designers anyways.