Funny how with all the risk of Corydoras hybridization....
...there's not a single picture of a confirmed Cory hybrid to be found on Google Images. Am sure it happens, and personally am intrigued at the prospect of unique strains. Probably wouldn't be inclined to spread them around, but fact is I wouldn't see any harm in it provided they're given a distinct designation that allows them to be differentiated from everything else.
Once individuals are removed to captivity, ecologically they become irrelevant, and since in that context the hobby is by and large 'artificial', why not create hybrids? None of the fish anyone keeps are ever going back in the wild, and if their 'habitat' and 'evolution' is eternally to be living rooms and basements, why not hybridize provided hybrids are represented as hybrids?
Not my thing, but I've spent half my life attempting to protect species, and everything that the 'hobby' by and large does and protects is a far cry from natural in the textbook sense of the word. Does that mean Frankenfish should be all the rage? Definitely not, the current wild end-products are the result of million of years of evolutionary field trials and are consequently in character with the 'real' world which gives them a special quality and perhaps innate beauty just on that basis alone - but hybridization does occur in the wild, has itself given rise to speciation on countless occasions, and if someone wants to lark about with hybrids, so long as they keep it clear and candid, what of it?
The purists can push back, but recall that whole ethic goes out the window as soon as one takes possession of fish and throws them in a glass box so from my perspective there's a certain hypocrisy inherent in any talk about keeping the hobby 'pure'. Fire at will, but please, no nonsense about how preserving purity through a steady infusion of wild caught specimens (as opposed to domestic reliance on captive breds and -gasp!- hybrids) is good for the hobby because it support collectors, traders and breeders. However beneficial that may be for the hobby, its far and away a one-way proposition that with few exceptions is based solely on taking from nature-ever the bane of species since humans began walking.
What's the point of a hybrid? No idea, definitely not natural. But i suspect it might be similar to the point of keeping a dozen, two dozen or five dozen tanks, which however exalting, is not 'natural' either unless you happen to be a card-carrying CCA member. By the way, would like some cards - every time I go into a fish store I end up talking about CCA to people that have no idea that there's a fish club in the area. They almost always seem excited about coming and I always end up scrawling our web address on a business card. Be easier with cards, promise not to exalt or even mention 'hybrids'.
