According to Stephen King. It's worth a read. Regarding "talent:" http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2015/02/24/stephen-king-everything-you-need-to-know-about-writing-successfully/
Lots of really sound advice. I find myself agreeing with the vast majority of it. I especially like the bit you quoted above about talent.
I certainly would consider it if the publisher in question takes unagented submissions. If they don't, it seems like a pointless thing to do. Though maybe publishers who require agents will respond to queries regardless, I don't know. If they do, and the response to the query was favorable, that might help in landing an agent.
A lot of the publishers I researched wouldn't take queries from unrepresented authors. Some do. But I think the ones who do take unrepresented work probably put those into a different pile than the ones vetted by agents. King was from a different time, as evidence by his belief that agents take 10%. 15 is the new standard.
Except in rare circumstances, I don't know that an agent is doing you a lot of good these days. Except of course for markets that require them. King also writers horror, and the big name publishers in horror, science fiction, and fantasy do take unagented novel submissions, I believe. At least, many of them do. For general fiction it may be a different story.
This is one of the things I don't necessarily agree with, though as I've not begun the process of shopping my works around, I really can't have much of an opinion on the subject. Keep in mind, also, that this was originally written/published in the 80's and that the publishing landscape has likely changed a lot since then.