Gimmes might be your thing or might not be. To my way of thinking they’re occasionally a true relief from the legendary knee-knocker, but more often, way more often really, they’re regretfully accepted, ignored, half-heard, offered too early, offered too late, taken as an insult, and on and on. The finer points of the etiquette are angstrom-thin.
Further, they have way more to do with pace of play and stone-cold boredom than they do with sportsmanship. Most gimmes are a cri de coeur on the part of your group to get boring putting over with. If putting for your own triple-bogie is something of a chore, imagine how the viewing public feels.
All of this is to say, another virtue of the Stableford format is that gimmes don’t happen. We don’t “give” a putt that can score, in any format. And we know Stableford has no putts that can’t do that.
This is my argument when people, having not played the format, complain about the perceived humiliation of picking up—of the ball not coming to rest in the cup. In my experience, that happens more often in medal golf than in Stableford. I’ve played in plenty of foursomes of weak putters where the ball never drops in a whole round—and the gimmes just can’t keep up.