"yeah, landing is just a controlled stall"
My view is that GENERALLY your friend is correct.
In nearly all cases (tricycle or tailwheel) the last second or two of a landing aircraft should involve the aircraft gently stalling onto the ground.
In a tricycle type this involves the mainwheels touching down and the P1 holding off the nose until it drops through lack of elevator influence. In a tailwheel configuration, the aim is to touch down all three wheels at the same time.
In certain conditions a tailwheel pilot will "wheel it on" which means he will be landing main wheel first (not stalled) and will then allow his groundspeed to decay enough for his airspeed to ensure that his tailwheel drops onto the ground. In this scenario he/she is not stalling the aircraft during landing.
On all cross wind "flares" I do believe that the aircraft is still stalled although it may well be with one wing down to counteract the drift effect.
To summarise, I still believeyour friend is correct.
DubTrub has a point however. I am not qualified to go into further detail on the areas I believe he is referring to. For the time being, I suggest you aim to stall your ship onto the hard and not do what too many do these days which is a flat "three wheel" splat that does nothing but keep Mr Front Oleo in the manner in which he ahs become accustomed.
Interesting thread, I'm interested as to how this develops