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I feel like I spend all my time de-mould lining as well. But it always pays off. As many others have said, it doesn't matter how well you can paint a model if you don't take the effort to get rid of the mold lines. The only ones I usually pass on are the ones on ribbed tubing - those are just friggin' impossible!? I'll give the surface a rub down with emery board, but you just can never get all the mold lines on tubing...

I've been working on my Space Marine army for about three years doing mold lines and putting magnets in places, haven't completed a model yet. I'm like everyone that has posted, mould lines are important to get rid of, and I take my time on all my models since I want them to look good when I'm done.

What I hate the most, is paying a good amount of money for Forge World models, and they have areas were the mould didn't line up and it has a nasty line through your piece and no matter what you do, the piece will have a mistake in it. I think that is what takes the longest, having to greenstuff or work on those areas so your model will look decent still.

I have found the newer kits that GW is making, the mould lines are lighter and come off very easy compared to the older model kits.

As for tools, I use a file, and my hobby knife to remove mould lines, and I've found that if you scrap the knife edge along tubes and plasma coils, that you can make it so the mould line isn't as noticeable. I would say that is the hardest and most time consuming parts on any model is the ribbed tubing and plasma coils.

I literally spend forever on mold lines and removing models from sprues compared to painting

I pay people to paint and de-mould my miniatures