I find the original poster's reaction to be quite exaggerated, but I do agree with him on the topic of pasta.
I'm 100% Italian, living in Italy, and my wife loves spaghetti alle vongole, a dish she regularly order at restaurants, whether by the seaside or not.
Unfortunately, we once received a subpar version of the dish at a place near Lake Como, which turned out to be nothing more than a tourist trap. That looked exactly like the one in the picture above
GialloZafferano is undoubtedly the number one website for recipes used by Italians. You can browse through various recipes there, but trust me, no one here would consider a single clam (vongola) to be acceptable as it's merely a garnish
Here link to recipes