Well let's be clear about something - there is nothing stopping you from playing sticks. There are several people, at least one of which I know uses this forum regularly, who cannot play with motion because of some disability or something similar physically preventing them from using it. Even if you're not one of those people you can still play without motion if it's just more fun for you since fun should always be the bottom line in a game like this.
I don't agree with saying it's just as good as motion though just speaking from my experience as a mid-level player who has played shorter-ranged and longer-ranged weapons. Longer-ranged weapons have the issue of needing either extremely precise flick or tracking aim which I'll touch on later, but with shorter-ranged weapons it's a bit more complicated.
Every shorter-ranged weapon will have at least some amount of moments where you need to flick your camera in reaction to someone getting close to you like how I described earlier with the Decavitator. The Decavitator will need to do this more often since it's integral to how it approaches people but something like a Splattershot will also have a lot of moments where something springs up at them or rushes them down and they will need to respond quickly, either by immediately getting exact aim on the target or by doing the floor shooting thing they do. Both of these are possible, but much slower and much less consistent because of the sheer amount of precision you need with stick aim.
You could say that you can just get better at handling that precision but there are several things in this game with a degree of difficulty that forces even top players into becoming very inconsistent. No matter what control scheme you're playing, E-Liter technically has the potential to be the absolute best weapon in the game. Literally just hit all of your shots and you're unstoppable. That's not how the game works though and E-Liter. while obviously very strong, doesn't even have close to the amount of usage as what you'd expect if the answer was that simple.
Even at the start of the game when it was at its absolute strongest point in Splatoon 3, it still wasn't everywhere because it is not a consistent weapon. The same principle applies here - even if you want to ignore the situations where stick aim is just too slow, both the E-Liter and people playing without motion have to deal with even the slightest of difference in their input completely changing the outcome of a situation, and while with E-Liter the reward is a weapon that can one-shot you from anywhere that isn't directly behind cover, for playing without motion the reward is just playing on the same playing field as people who ARE using motion.
The argument isn't that sticks is just some fundamentally screwed up control scheme where you're completely unable to win every match. I think just saying that it's bad isn't very productive in a similar, even if not identical way to saying it's good is. The argument is that it's a handicap. That's all I'm trying to say. By using it you're going to be fighting to get onto something resembling even playing field with everyone else. If you were to get especially proficient, you would end up hitting a skill ceiling that's lower than what players with motion have. I couldn't tell you where that skill ceiling is, and it's definitely high enough for anyone using it to continue playing and learning the game for a long time.
The only weapons I can think of that might be close to exceptions to all of this are the Brushes, mainly Octobrush but this could apply to the others as well. There's no need to have any amount of precise aim when directly approaching someone which would be nice. There will still be those situations where something jumps out at you especially against a coordinated team where someone will try killing you out of revenge for if you kill their teammate, but since your main goal is to carry out ambushes and use movement that is not hindered by your control scheme those moments probably won't be as frequent as with other weapons.
I still think that if you want to play at your best though, unless there is something physically keeping you from it, you should give motion an honest try for at least a week or two. If you don't end up enjoying yourself then you're absolutely free to go back to sticks but I don't think it should be looked at as some viable alternative to motion.
i turned it off when i first started because i assumed it was Some Gimmick Nobody Uses but my friend who got me into splatoon in the first place quickly corrected me.
