I've never bothered with anything more than EV training when playing normally, and I'm one of those that likes their Pokemon "organic" as well, so I've never gone all in 31x6 shiny boogaloo with it either. But for anything below that- EVs, egg moves, experience levels, cloning Pokemon to play multiple Cups in the old console games with level requirements- all fair game. A lot of us have put vastly more than enough real hours into these games to "deserve" the time saves.

Pic unrelated, exploding Lickylicky is just a funny thought.