I realized that all of my characters except my first one have been grushed + hell leveled. I'm about to start another but think I'm going to just play through the game on this one. Made me wonder what everyone else does, so here I am asking you all .

Would play through the game if you have done that only once this ladder. It can be pretty fun to play with some random people that you find in normal, especially if you do act 3 (since thats something that we never do).

Another way would be to get rushed through normal, do tristruns (yea, there are seriously tristruns going in 2022 xD), then tombs, then anc norm and baalruns till sth like 40. cows from 20-24 are possible as well, but u will most likely deal very low dmg to them.
You get through the game in a more legit way, but you still avoid the struggle of not finding a party that plays through all with you.
For nightmare you have to be lucky to find a team, but it's doable.
Running through hell is almost impossible in public games, cause people will come and rush you (your party will most likely happily take the rush), or bots will come and mf all bosses before you even reach act 2.

Depends, if it's too early and nobody has the char or gear to rush, then I just walk. If it's late enough, I say screw walking through the convoluted map that is Act 3 and get the rush, at least till A1 Hell where I then can just farm and walk so I don't die all the time. I then self level and self MF.

All but my first character was grushed. Prefer the grush so i can get to business faster.

If I never played that build (and at this point there is very few that I never played) I play through the game again, if is not a new build, then usually is a grush.

Play the game slow and steady with mates.

The definition of "slow and steady" varies greatly. Some people define this as an evening, some define it as 2 months.

If you deduct the social aspect then single player is much greater than battle.net.

PVM after beating Baal in Hell is monotone and generally a waste of time. Once you have done it a couple of times you are insane to keep on doing it.

If you get rushed to PVP then that is another case.