The "why the added work" question has to come from a shooter with little to no understanding of long range handgun external ballistics and the shortcomings of modern bullet designs, which are a tradeoff between external ballistic characteristics and utility.
Fact: Many designers of handgun bullets turn out very inefficient designs, in order to accommodate utility and facility.
Fact: You can still obtain many of the classic lead handgun bullets that were designed by people who knew what they were trying to attain; Elmer Keith comes first to mind and Jordan and Skelton second. Most of these designs were never adopted by the mass producers of present day bullets.
Fact: You can go a whole lifetime without leading up a barrel when using lead bullets, but someone with this kind of LUCK should devote some time to winning the lottery instead of shooting. You can measure the HARDNESS of a bullet', but you can't analyze the alloy in your home loading shop. Most bullet makers that I have met will use anything faintly resembling a bullet alloy that comes cheap and they invent a cover story. The few times I spent real money for an alloy analysis, I dumped hundreds of punds of alloy and began again. The times I lucked out, I cast lots of bullets.
In times gone by, printers added a tin addative to Linotype alloy when it seemed frazzled out and was not making complete letters in the matrix lines. This "Mortin" or other brand names was a "seat of the pants" expedient that prevented some very expensive alterations to their entire alloy supply, that could amount to several tons. So, when print shops stopped using hot metal type, all manner of scraggly garbage was dumped on the used metal market tagged "Linotype." If it did not come with an analysis, you could figure that what you had was a gamble at best. (I bought two drums of really superior alloy and three drums of pretty bad alloy.)
Fact: Some shooters of plated or jacketed bullets have never fired lead alloy bullets. So, if you don't have a pretty good reason to experiment with bullet styles and types, stick to what everybody else uses.
On the other hand, if you are a true experimenter and YOU KNOW YOUR SHOOTING CAPABILITIES, go ahead and buy up some of the old, classic molds and a quantity of good bullet lube and you might just amaze yourself at the in rease in accuracy, especially at longer ranges. (One tip: Measure your bore by slugging and miking and obtain the proper lube/sizing die.)
On the other hand, if you use the cases designed for your gun and you never shoot unknown bullet alloys in your handguns, you don't need to worry about leading or fouling problems.
In truth, I really miss the zinc base bullets; too bad that technology passed into history.
If you use wheel weight alloy for your bullets, it is wise to slug and mike your bore once a year and to check it for tight and loose spots, and check the driving side of the lands for rounding out. That way, when you say that you never have any lapping or scouring problems with wheel weight alloy it will be a FACT, not an OPINION.
Excuse me, but I choose to shoot my lands out the hard way.