If money isn’t an issue it would be crazy not to have a generator, if nothing else it gives you a couple of weeks or much more of electricity, to adjust to a new situation and charge batteries, manage a well stocked freezer and convert the food into canned, and all kinds of things even working out trades with neighbors where you split their food for your cold storage and let them charge phones and such.
On the other hand, preparing at a more basic level and not counting on such luxuries is not without it’s merits, and can certainly be adequate.
Living in 'Hurricans Alley', I have experience in doing that very thing.
(Three days)After Katrina, we were eating freshly made spaghetti, garlic bread w/wine when the RED Cross from Nebraska arrived asking if we needed MRE's. We invited them to lunch, lol.
You are right, We have a couple of generators, and some gasoline stocked. They have been quite useful during power outages. If we could afford solar we would also have that.
We have 2 fireplaces, and 20 acres of undeveloped land with lots of trees. Some coleman stoves, sterno stoves, battery operated stuff like fans, and rechargeable batteries etc.
Electricity is nice, but we have plenty of ancestors that survived without the grid, and I think we are intelligent enough to figure out how to determine to survive without it again. I agree with you that using generators to make a smoother transition makes sense.