Whoever compared Kanye West's creativity to De La Soul's needs to be shot. Several times. 
You're right, even though he didn't really do that, but you'd be hard pressed to find mainstream hip-hop in the last five years or so better than what Kanye's putting out.
Sure he did-
And no one understands this new world better than Kanye, as he samples Steely Dan, Daft Punk, Can, Michael Jackson, to create one of the the most creatively produced hip-hop records since De La Soul.
Saying they're both lots of creative. Kanye couldn't sniff Prince Paul's jock creatively. That's not a reflection of how/what I think of Kanye, but more of how great De La was/still is.
On a related note I saw them play with A Tribe Called Quest at the ku Ballroom once. Q-Tip freestyled for 5-10 minutes while his DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad fixed his DAT machine. Was cool. Also was cool running in to De La at The Holiday Inn in Lawrence before their show (saw their tour bus, guessed, and stopped).
