In the days pre-carp, and with many unlikely to encounter a barbel, backwinding was the norm for match anglers and most of us fishing for small to medium size fish. For a long chunk of my fishing life, I'd have a drag set to reduce the chance of cracking off on the strike with very light line and a fish a bit bigger than normal, or one that was moving in the opposite direction as you struck, but everything else was dealt with by backwinding. That's still largely what I prefer.
With bigger fish - all the carp around these days, and plenty of big barbel in some waters - it's a different picture, and the drag is more useful with fish that run hard or fight more stubbornly near the net and need more heavy-handed playing. I pay a lot more attention to setting, adjusting and using the drag, but backwinding still plays a part.
I'm guessing some anglers use their drag a lot more than I do. For instance, some are happy with reels that can't be backwound, and that's a no-no for me. And many say how much better drags are these days, whereas I've never had problems with reel drags in the past or felt especially impressed by the progress claimed. ( Although I do like the Shimano Fightin' Drag system)
Perhaps it's also true ,although this is just an idea, that some anglers are more "technicist" than others, setting and adjusting their drags minutely by x numbers of clicks and making full use of their high-spec reels; others, and I'm probably one, go more with a "good-enough" drag, and rely on feel and a combination of backwinding and drag and finger pressure on the turning spool.
I don't have any fs reels with no backwind, but I do use cf reels with no drag.
I expect there'll be some very different answers, according to species and fishing style.