How traditionally are we talking? Traditionally, many genres of games haven't had progression for someone to have the most of. That guy who played a billion hours of Quake, or Halo 3, or Starcraft 2 doesn't have anything you don't have. Hell even the likes of League of Legends, it doesn't take that much IP to buy any one champion the free way, and you can't buy power for that champion. I guess you could say you're paying to win by buying the strongest champion in that patch with cash each time, but honestly if you really have that little play time you're probably hurting your performance more than helping it by champion hopping that much.
I probably speak mostly in the scope of MMOs: Games that are fairly grindy by default, and always have been, and have social/competitive aspects. Generally they've always had items and tiers that take weeks or months to grind out, and the idea of paying your way through that is often looked pretty far down upon.
But if you're making more out of game than in-game, it's just good time management.
