...on what you're end goal is, and what audience you're playing for. If you stay inside of the niche focus stacking community then you're probably gonna stack, cause per pixel image sharpness is the only thing that seems to matter to a lot of them.
If you want to be known outside of the small focus stacking community then you're going to have to create images that look good edge to edge. Someone who's looking for a photo to save to their PC desktop or cell phone as wallpaper doesn't care how sharp an image is, but the light and the composition have to be spot on. I'm currently using this one as my cell phone wallpaper:
Tech Specs: Canon 40D (F13, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (around 3x) + a diffused MT-24EX (both flash heads on the Canon flash mount, E-TTL metering). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. Image taken in 2009 but only recently processed.
Is it razor sharp? Nope but someone on Reddit, a complete stranger, had this to say about it:
"I’ve been staring at this for ten minutes. Best bee photo I’ve ever seen — just pure magic. Thank you so much for sharing this!"
Now I'm not saying that you can't take focus stacked images that look good edge to edge, you most certainly can and I know a few macro shooters who are doing it. But the subject has to be motionless long enough to get all of the frames that you want for a stack. The downside to shooting static scenes, other than anyone can do it, is that it's tough to shoot a static subject and end up with a photo that draws the viewer in and holds their attention. It's also tough to take images that really stand out without resorting to extreme measures, simply because anyone can photograph a motionless subject.
Is focus stacking bad? Nope. But just like using a tripod it can limit what you can photograph and when. For me the technique comes with too many limitations, and introduces other problems (like stack errors), so I have no interest in it. At least not with the subjects and magnifications that I shoot at (1x to 5x).