"Grain is an amateur obsession." In my case grain became much less important when I added 4x5 and 6x6~6x7 to 35mm. With various formats one had a choice.
Today I'll say, "Noise is an amateur obsession." >>>
I had never thought about grain/noise in those terms but how right you are!
Sometimes during the Film Era we used to deliberately create as much grain as we could induce from the film by
extreme processing. One trick was to under-expose Ektachrome (transparency film) by several stops; process for an extended time in B&W print developer; and then complete the development for a color negative.
You could get really extreme ASA ratings, posterized (pointillistic) color; and golf ball sized grain by processing like that.
In the digital age, for action and low-light photography, I am more interested in capturing the shot and I really don't give a hoot about Noise in those sort of images.