I tend to try to teach players the "better" way (of declaring their actions in-fiction over suggesting a skill-use) but I put up with them doing that because I don't like telling people how they HAVE to play.
If I think the action is an auto-success, I'll just mentally set the DC low enough that they succeed, even if they roll poorly. I think that the idea that you want to try to avoid rolling as much as possible is a weird one - whether you roll or not should not affect your success rate. (Though, if someone rolls low, I'll probably narrate them doing something wrong that still results in success).
At any rate, it's true that a lot of the time people play the way they are most used to playing, even if the playstyle that they're using more properly belongs in another edition (and the above tendency is definitely from 3.x).