I wouldn't call optics/scopes and foregrips " gadgets and fluff".
Many of them are. If the optic has more than an on-off slider or on-off knob or click-release button, or if you have to hold down a button for it to work, then it's a gadget. This is why the close quarters optics on-off switch is not a simple rotary dial that also changes intensity. You set intensity and close the dust cover so you aren't tempted to fiddle with it, then on-off is a separate switch. If inside the reticle is anything more than a simple crosshair or dot, it's a gadget. The fact that some highly trained individuals can use gadgetized optics effectively in combat doesn't change the fact that they are gadgets. Same goes for the foregrips. If it's a simple grip that is always on the weapon and is suitable for every environment you may find yourself in, then maybe it's just a grip. As soon as it folds, slides, attaches something else, is only used sometimes, or anything that requires any thought beyond point-shoot, then it's a gadget. If you have to THINK about using it in combat, it's a gadget.
Heck, I took off the optional foregrip handle because it kept getting caught in my gear or the seatbelt during vehicle drills and I replaced one picatinny rail with a smooth foregrip section because the rail kept grabbing my gloves and preventing me from smoothly bringing the weapon from hanging on the sling up to firing position. Since the single greatest chance of me ever having to use the thing would be in a vehicle ambush, I removed the grip for good and trained to use the weapon without it in every scenario. My accuracy on the range was in the top 10% (probably better than that since I have shot expert in every military course I"ve ever run) of every student out there, and my instructor praised my decision to simplify since it worked so well for me and my expected tactical scenarios.
Really, just look at who uses and promotes those things. They're either salesmen, wanna-bes, or loudmouth ex-swat types who were probably bad loudmouth cops before they became bad loudmouth swat members. You just don't find "real" seal team members selling that stuff or hanging them on their weapons unless they've personally used them long enough that employing with those gadgets is second nature.
In the F-15E we called stuff like that a "face magnet", and we brought new pilots and WSOs up along a progressive path to working with the gadgets. Because although the plane has a ton of nifty gadgets, you can end up fighting the gadgets instead of the enemy and that gets you killed. Same with a gun.
My home defense setup was an unadorned pistol next to a 3 cell maglight. I've used flashlights all my life, and I've drilled on that exact same gun in the military to the point where I can operate it and probably assemble/disassemble it blindfolded or under stress. They're both dead simple. Flashlight has 2 operating modes. In one mode, a press of the button turns on and off the light. In the other mode, it is a passably good club for bonking people. The gun has two modes. In the first one, I point it and start pulling the trigger. No safety to operate, no laser to try to remember to turn on, no flashlight, nothing. Point and pull trigger. In the secondary mode for the gun, I throw it because it's sort of heavy and made of metal and will hurt or distract anything it hits, maybe long enough to use my flashlight in secondary mode.
Simplicity and repeatable drills. The rest is fluff that will get you killed.
My final "proof" - in Afghanistan a single Afghan Lt Col with an AK-47 took out 9 air advisors including one Major I trained with, even though all 9 advisors were armed. The policy in place was to have the weapons and loaded magazines on the person in a holster, but not actually loaded. The rumor had it that at least one advisor managed to load his weapon but was unable to return fire. When the time comes, you don't have the luxury of using the gadgets. It has to be ready to go, point and shoot, at an instinctive level. When I was required to go around unarmed, I stopped doing shooting drills and started focusing exclusively on the motions required to remove and load my gun, chamber a round, switch off the safety, and fire a single round. Just doing that sucked. Switching on optics or whatever would just add time to a process that was starting out from a position that was probably already receiving fire. Those 9 dead advisors *almost* had a chance to return fire. Why on earth would I want to add a gadget, optics, grip, whatever, that would lengthen the time required to return fire or add bulk to a weapon I'm trying to extract from a holster, load, cycle, and shoot while low-crawling underneath a conference table, or in my other personal high-risk situation, while I'm in a car returning fire during a vehicle ambush, or trying to exit the car without shooting myself or my comrades, when every single thing on my weapon is trying to entangle itself on the seatbelt?
Nothing makes friends like being the first person to exit out a vehicle and discharging your M-4 in the face of the next guy coming out, because your seatbelt hung up on your custom SWAT special laser foregrip as you fell backwards. It wasn't me but I saw it happen, luckily in training so nobody got shot that time.
