I still think Pope had it right when he said: "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learned to dance" A while back there was an author on The Colbert Report who was promoting a book about creativity in humans, and he gave a surprising statistic that in kindergarten over 95% of kids will say they're creative, while in high school that number drops to below 50%. So I don't think people are born being more creative at all, I simply think some choose to cultivate that universal creativity that all of us possess and some don't, and somewhere along the line people forget they ever had that creativity in them at all.
As for the whole "technique VS creativity, intuition VS intellect" debate, I always thought it was a false dichotomy. When we look at the greats in all mediums, the most creative were frequently the most technically accomplished, and this is hardly limited to literature. Although I do agree that the entire point of learning technique is to be able to forget it. It's like learning all of the minute techniques of a jump shot so that in a game you can do it automatically without thinking. Art is the same way. You consciously learn technique so that it's always there when you need it. There's a lot of mediocre art made where technique was never learned and ignored, as well as where technique becomes the sole focus. It can't be to either extreme. The technique needs to be there, but in the service of intuitive creativity.