I perfer to keep it simple. No gray area. Just plain, old-fashioned human effort. It's that simple people. If there isn't a deadline, just do it yourself. If you don't know what you're doing, try it anyways! A good attempt is better than an easy solution.
Ever heard of the IKEA principle? There was a study where different people were asked to build IKEA funiture and then appraise it's value. Then they had a control group who didn't have to build anything appraise the furniture. Guess what, the people who worked hard for their result placed a higher dollar value on the piece! The moral is that no matter how bad it looks, you are putting a piece of yourself into your game and, keeping shortcuts to a minimum, you can really be proud of your work.