You're proposing a false dichotomy. It's quite possible that it works for some people and it doesn't work for others and only being in the persons' shoes will let you truly evaluate the benefits vs. the tradeoffs.

For example, stim meds increase my focus but also seem to reduce my creativity and injure my sleep (to the point that I have occasional short-term memory loss). So every day I individually evaluate whether it will be worth it or not, and I make sure to take at least a couple days off a week to catch up on REM sleep.