Actually publishing plays a very important role in the industry...  The game developers do 100% of the game creation.  Publishers do the 100% of things that the developers aren't interested in such as marketing, accounting, and funding development.

It allows creative game developers to focus on building their works of art because the publisher quite often pays for the development costs and then, once the game is complete, the publisher does the marketing and other things to deliver it to the consumers.  You may think that this is taking credit for the idea, but really it is about helping turn the ideas into reality and then into a profitable business.  I don't see many publishers really taking credit for the games...  They take more credit for finding great game development companies.  Companies like Ninja Theory, Factor 5, Real Time Worlds, Remedy, Rockstar, Valve, Bioware, Silicon Knights, Mistwalker, Inifinty Ward, etc.  are very well know as great game developers and get credit on the opening screens of all their games.

There is nothing wrong with a publisher putting their logo on when they pay you to develop something and then successfully market it world-wide to both yours and their financial benefit.

Burnout 1 & 2 had nothing to do with EA if i remember correctly.