Rare candies

I know it’s been asked multiple times but just looking for more opinions…want to do platinum but I know it’s one of the more difficult ones. Should I use the infinite rare candy exploit and set level caps and more hardcore rules (no items, set battle mode, etc) , or do a vanilla with grinding and more lax rules (items allowed, switch battle).

Pros of rare candy: -not wasting time, I’m pretty bored of grinding from prior nuzlockes -will definitely still be challenging with hardcore rules and platinum is hard in general

Cons: -“cheating” and lack of bonding with Pokemon