Out of those Hacks currently released as Code Hacks (which are a minority as already pointed out, quite a few could be implemented as Plugins.
And some others (like Plugin Descriptions) are already somewhat redundant as there are similar features in stock Code.
As far as I am concerned, I try to make everything without File Edits - even if it takes 5x as long to create it

The time needed to support No Code-Edits Hacks is drastically lower.