Andy's thesis, "Creativity is not design," is pretty obvious. I'm not sure anyone ever defined creativity as design. What I think he means is, "Design is not creative," and I think that's pretty short-sighted.
Design is not art, it is, however, problem-solving, and being a good problem-solver requires a capacity to think creatively. Creative design doesn't mean ignoring accepted principles of hierarchy, spacing, etc. Design goes deeper than that. For example, think about the way that Google has implemented it's own cross-browser CSS button style. The button doesn't look very different, but Google designers were smart enough to know that the variety of default browser buttons detracted from their brand. Google designers (very creatively) devised a solution that is lightweight, accessible, looks the same across browsers, etc.