I'm generally with Kyle. To me, a lot of the greatness of golf only really emerges as you embrace playing by the rules. Score really is just a number, after all.
I've had countless conversations about "casual rules" over the years. One that stands out: a buddy was saying that he'd sometimes improve his lie if his ball was up against a tree, in a spot where he could swing at it normally but would catch the tree on the follow-through and likely break a shaft. He said "I'm not going to cost myself $100 trying to hit that ball." I don't understand that one. The cost to save yourself $100 is one damn stroke - take an unplayable. Or pitch out and protect your shaft and health. Or, hell, man-up and hit the shot and accept the financial and health risks of doing so. In almost every situation where I do the math, that stroke is a pretty tiny price to pay.
I've carried a lot of vanity as a golfer. It took me decades to get to a place where I can accept that it's not the end of the world to card a true 84 instead of an 82 that omits a penalty. But it's funny how so much of the anxiety and frustration of golf disappears as you get better at accepting that sometimes bad things happen in this game, and they cost you strokes, and mostly they're not nearly as bad as things that happen when you're not playing this game. As Ira says, it's a game and meant to be enjoyed. For me, I've finally realized that my enjoyment pretty much is never defined by the score I shoot, so why not just lean all the way into playing the game penalty strokes and all? It actually feels better to shoot the honest 84 with two whiffs when you should've taken an unplayable, rather than the 82 with caveats.
All that said, I think Kyle's drawing a pretty harsh line. I play with a few high handicappers that I really enjoy. Like Tommy, I give them mulligans and gimmes here and there. It helps keep play moving, and keeps them enjoying themselves, and their scores aren't good enough to worry about the legitimacy of. It's miraculous that my mother is still playing golf in 2021 - I played a regulation 18 with her a few weeks ago, and started asking her to improve her lies here and there. She's just too weak to get the ball out of even a mundane bad lie, and she's going to have 3-4 holes a round where she can't even keep count of how many strokes she piles up anyways. I don't really care about the legitimacy of the score she shot, nor should anyone else. But she made a real life birdie on the 108 yard 17th, with a driver through the green and a putter from the rough. I don't remember any of her fluffed lies, but if they let her survive to the 17th to make that birdie... well I feel like I remember every birdie I've seen her make in the last 10 years or so.
I guess there's a line between being liberal with the rules to maintain the vanity of your score, and being liberal with the rules to give yourself a fighting chance of surviving the humiliation that is playing golf.
I do like the idea of incorporating a few mulligans and fluffed lies into my mother's already made-up handicap. If I gave her 30 shots plus 3 mullies and 6 fluffs, it would add a little layer of strategy that might be fun.