"Tedious" is a loaded word and means different things to different people.
I've never been fond of bookkeeping in an RPG, I never did assent to play the Accountant class. But I recognize the need for things like encumbrance, spell slots, quivers, (expensive) material components and the like. But there's different ways to approach each and different ways to make them appealing.
Many games use equipment slots rather than track pounds/coins carried (ex., A game might allow you to carry one Large item, three medium items, five small items and two special items).
Some games use a special roll or incorporate "ammo checks" into the attack roll (ex., nat 1 on d20 means you just used your last arrow or may move your equipment stores down a level, such as - plentiful -> some -> a handful -> out).
Some games don't worry about spell components (B/X), others may only care about expensive components (5E's spell focus, component pouch and spell components that cost specific gold). Some games don't use spell slots and let you cast things as long as you can succeed the casting roll or that it has a hit point cost or spell point cost or some other factor.
As for using it as a balancing point, I'd rather not if I can help. There's nothing wrong with being required in some way to track a resource, but to force someone into intense bookkeeping, I don't want a part of it - especially if I'm DMing, because it's most likely going to add to my load of things going on in the game, and I'm just going to ban it so I don't have to worry about whether its being tracked appropriately or not.
