I was never taught the gate stuff during my IR, and I have never (since the IR anyway ) had any trouble flying holds, and have never had my flying of them questioned.
The methods above are there as a double check of the progress through the turn, and whether you should roll out early or continue through the inbound track to get yourself established.
Ultimately you should have a pretty good idea of the wind, and the gate is usually enough of an indication of if you're wide or tight on the hold, but these are there as a back up. Often I find these checks are actually too much for people, and some end up doing mental gymnastics trying to come up with some figures rather than just looking at the picture in front of them.
At the end of the day, all you have to do is hold the inbound track for "a reasonable amount of time" which leaves plenty of wiggle room for an examiner, and in the real world noone really cares as long as you stay in the protected area.
One piece of advice I heard with holds was "wide and long, can't go wrong" - so basically since you aren't assessed on the overall time of the hold any more, if you intentionally position yourself a bit wide and a bit far (while making sure you stay in the protected area), you will always have to roll out early onto the inbound track, and that's the only bit that's actually assessed.