I’ll tell you what I tell my extremely competitive teen son. If you want to say that you shot 77 but took mulligans/illegal drops/3’ gimmes, go right ahead. Doesn’t mean anything to me but I promise you that someday it will eat away at you because deep down in you didn’t accomplish what you think did.
And it just depends. I’ve taken/given plenty of gimmes for all kinds of reasons, like to speed up play, to lesson stress in a friendly match, etc. But if you’re going to hang a plaque on the wall with your scorecard that says 72, if necessary, there better be an added line about any and all gimmes, mulligans, etc. I can’t even remember the score I had, somewhere in the low 70’s. I knew I was playing well and late in the round there were a few tap ins that were given to me and I could have easily picked up but there was no way I wanted to look back at that and wonder if I really shot what I did. Like I said, shouldn’t matter to anyone else but yourself. And another reason I don’t care when people ‘inflate’ their own ego is that it helps me. I love hearing a 5 handicap call me a sandbagger so that I can explain to them that my handicap isn’t the problem but theirs might be.