For minis, we used everything from cardboard cutout squares to legos, plastic army men, kinder surprise metal figures to custom 3d printed ones.
Is it nice to play with custom minis on detailed terrain? Yes. It's cool. It's also PIA to set up and takes time from the game. When we have trip to mountain cabin for gaming weekend, i'll haul all of it and take time to set it up. But i set it up Friday evening and it stays on the gaming table till Sunday afternoon, plus we have at lest 12-14 hours of play on it. For usual 3-4 hour sessions, not worth it. We rotate at hosting, sometimes we play at caffe and lot's of times location is changed at last minute, so anything beyond SImple or Efficient is not practical.