Is grinding for a competitive team as bad as people said

Depends what is needed and what games you have access to. This generation so far is the most generous because you can buy infinite of almost anything you'd ever want, an end game you can just mash A thru for easy money, and ability to move pokemon around to different games to maximize your resources on those games if it's compatible with them.

There's a few things that S/V lack that are needed: An All EV-training reset item (coming in the DLC as clear mochi, as a bonus there's soon to be mochi that adds certain amounts of EVs for more precise training), getting 0 IVs on Pokemon (specifically citing trick room users who are legendary pokemon although 0 attack / 0 special attack are often optimal as well), and the grind for tera shards.

Realistically it's 2-4 shards (with a bonus if you're hosting the raid of 3 minimum) per raid (not including special events) and at 50 to change a Tera type, it can be tedious. Looking at roughly let's say about 16 raids per tera change at 10 minutes each including raid prep time and catch time? The Blissey raids currently going on are great, if you host them yourself especially, but usually it's a pretty miserable grind if you need multiple Tera changes. The most common consensus I've seen is lowering it to 10 is more reasonable.

So it basically goes like this: find whatever pokemon you like, let's say amoongus, go catch one in the grass, spend like 100k on 5 on bottle caps or so, no problem (assuming it doesn't need 0 speed). Dump some exp candy in it. Probably need to make 2-3 TMs which you passively have the ingredients for if you just got thru the game casually and not a speed run. Spend 260k times two for 520k on vitamins, maybe a bit less if you have wing items, 10k more for the last 6 points. Then figure out what tera type you want, and spend a few hours grinding for those including time spent skipping dates to refresh raids or getting less shards by joining other users online. You may also need an ability capsule or patch for what you want, which one cost money and one is only from 6* raids.

Of course casual play will get you some of this stuff along the way, but you do eventually run out. You can also save some time by getting non-legendary Pokemon with the tera you want from a raid, ideally with the ability you want, if you crowd source your friends into checking theirs for a while and you aren't in a hurry. But let's say you had to rush to make a water tera Amoongus with regenerator right now, from just a completed save file able to fight 6* raids, by yourself without events? Probably hope that you can find an online raid with any amoongus while grinding out water shards to save money but potentially could take you 4-5 hours for it to complete.

Yes and no. First, full disclosure, I don't play competitive. So why care about my opinion? Well, realize that the most vocal voices in the community are heavily biased towards an ideal vgc being basically a battle sim detached from the mainline games. TPC's vision clearly differs as they seey obtaining and raising pokemon as part of competition. Playing the games is just as much a part of the competition as the actual battles are. That's where the disconnect is.

With that important context about the vision for VGC out of the way.. It's a matter of perspective, really. When you think about time and resources that go into the preparation for any competition, it's always a grind. Is it any less of a grind than picking up the piano or participating in a marathon, let alone running marathons at a world class level? No. But the controversial truth of the matter is that many competitive players simply don't enjoy playing the games. Again, the official format would use a battle sim if they had their way.

It is easier than ever to obtain battle ready pokemon. Right now. It's literally never been easier. But it all goes back to that fundamental disconnect between the comp players and TPC. VGC is supposed to reward skill and dedication. It's not purely option select, there is toil involved too. They want you to buy the games, they want you to play the games. For better or for worse, that's how it's always been and will always be.

I agree that competitive formats should use a battle sim. If you told me there was a chess competition where the rules dictated players had to provide their own pieces they carved out of wood themselves... why would I want to participate in that lol

For better or for worse, this just so happens to be the most prestigious competition in the world and the rules are not changing. You can choose to either participate and abide by the rules or not participate. Those are the two ethical options.

It depends on the Pokémon. Retraining a Pokémon is hard, and it's a bit difficult to use strategies that require low IVs since you can only raise them (not impossible though). It's a lot easier to get money and buy bottle caps and EV items though, especially compared to older games. Even I have a few Pokémon with competitive stats, and I don't play competitive.

That's one way to look at it. But we have to consider what exactly someone hopes to accomplish by playing. If you just want to participate, a complete SV savefile and little prep will suffice. However if you want to be competitive, in almost anything, it's gonna require a whole lot more money and time than the figures you cited anyway.

To put it in perspective, the average player probably owns more than 400 worth of games and has played longer than a week. Hardcore fans of the franchise probably own most or all of the games relevant to the current format already. It's really not an insurmountable barrier to anyone that enjoys the games.