>>57052939Given how tedious moving around could be, there were genuine use cases to having potions, revives, etc. around just so you weren't constantly running back to the Pokemon Center. But even then, it was trivial to have enough healing and money to buy more healing. The only time, ironically, you wouldn't have enough money would be if you kept losing from not using healing items or running back to the Centers.
The actual hold up would be something like PP, depending on what you were going with. Ethers weren't typically purchasable, to my memory, but of course stuff like Gen 3 had Leppa which trivialized that stuff anyway. Don't recall how it shook out in later gens, but I also don't recall having to worry about PP much anyway.