I think that in the same way there are many different ways to experience and enjoy neopets, there are many different ways to cultivate your cheating experience. I personally loath pet trading, I have always felt like it was a painful means to justify an end, and I never felt a sense of accomplishment when finally getting a pet I want, mostly just exhausted. I'm nervous about buying pets, but it's an option that greatly improves my neopets experience.
On the flip side, I was big into avatars as a kid and even though I happily played games for other people, I felt a lot of guilt and anti-accomplishment when a friend of mine got me a specific game avatar at a new years party, and I never fully got over it until I achieved the avatar score on my own years later. As much as I like seeing my avatar count go up, and as stuck as I feel now with only games I'm terrible at remaining, score sending for them would feel hollow. The only exception is the Godori auto-player because that is its own level of "fuck that game".
On the flip flip side, I just lack the capital to work my way up to a stamp avatar, so one of these days I might just buy some stamps to that end. There are a handful I really want.
I feel like it only makes it boring if you use it to cut corners on the things you actually enjoy.