To Prologue or Not to Prologue, that is the question.

I started writing my next book. It doesn't even have a title yet. I have included a prologue. A person in my critique group whom I respect tremendously told me (in a nice way) to ditch the prologue. Then she sent me a link to an article from Writers Digest that says not to include backstory in the first pages of your novel. In other words, don't use prologues.

This upset me. First of all, I'm tired of blanket rules. I think most things "depend." And I happen to be someone who loves prologues. Okay, not a bad one.  But if it is bad, I won't read it and I probably won't read the book either. It's probably a bad book. My friend says she skips prologues all together. I don't understand that.

"Water for Elephants" has a great prologue. Without the prologue, this book will miss something. My prologue is where my story begins. It is backstory in the sense that I then jump ten years forward where I continue. I didn't want to include my opening as a flashback scene.

I took my concern to Book Blogs and someone sent me a link to an article about prologues. It is a thoughtful article as opposed to the one from Writers Digest. Here is the link for those of you who are interested: 
http://www.foremostpress.com/authors/articles/prologue.html

So my question to anyone who cares to tell me what they think is, What is your opinion about prologues?