My choice would be to get a spare set of wheels and get rid of the flaming things. They are nothing but a nuisance loosing one set of wheels for pickup and causing Locomotives to pull in excess of what they sould do up gradients that can only cause damage to the gears. Far better that the wheels slip to indicate that you are trying to do too much with them. Then you can prototypically get a Banking Loco to assist.
I know some on here will strongly dissagree with me using sever gradients that without Traction Tyres would be pretty much impossible to use. Rule 1 for them I guess.
I'm not a lover of traction tyres or skates.
I think the need for traction tyres lies in the same area as the need for deep flanges, and that is the LGB commitment to R1. An overly tight radius - even by model terms - creates quite an element of drag, and the deep flanges reveal that both loco and stock will drag quite heavily in these situations.
As you say, each to his own, and many people wouldn't be able to indulge in this great hobby if there were no R1s
- You have to disconnect the motion from the offending wheel to get the tyre off/on.. 
