It depends on the dog. You have to do what works for your particular dog. Some dogs work well for praise alone, while others need more correction.
For Boo, a choker works really well. I don't even have to choke and he just walks properly, but if you give him an inch, he takes a mile, so flat collars just don't work on him. Boo LOVES to get yelled at. Some days, you can see him trying to provoke us. It's like he needs it to feel ok or something (he was beaten before we got him). Without negative attention, we lose him. He just goes weird on us. It's hard to explain, but people at my park have seen it. Sometimes you yell and he wags, it's really bizarre. He listens, but he wags.
Masochistic doggy.
Jemma on the other hand is a puller, choker or not. She's better off leash than on a leash. It's weird, but for some reason she does amazingly well when she knows you trust her to do the right thing. If you yell at Jemma, she gets SO upset. You just can't yell at her or near her at somebody else. She
only goes for praise.
For both though, I phased out the cookies pretty well. There are some things though that Jemma KNOWS get her a cookie, so she'll do them and go sit by the cookie jar (i.e. ear cleanings, baths, nail clipping, etc). She won't leave the cookie jar until she gets what is owed to her.lol
But I agree that people are dependent on tools and more often than not, they are the wrong tools for their particular dog.
Like chokers- if you have to choke your dog 10 times to get him to listen, a choker is by far not the tool you should be using (and you have to change your commands and body language too). The right tool with the right technique should work right away or it won't work at all and you have to move on to another tool and method.