On the SpinDrop blog, Dave Dash talks about a hole that he felt in his bug fixing for a project, something that he felt like the application had simply left out - a framework.

My client noted that these scripts were made from another contract programmer, and then a light-bulb went on… frameworks (whether it be symfony, ROR, Django, CakePHP, etc) help iron out and standardize these tasks.

He lists some of the basics of what a framework can help with, including storing data (both in the database and in things like $_SESSION) and a big one - form validation. Sure, you can do these things outside of any of the named frameworks out there, but they can make them simpler for any application written within them.