Opinion on grinding DLC

I'm playing Fire Emblem Awakening lately. One of the DLCs for this game is the Golden Pack, which contains maps for gaining gold, exp and legendary weapons quickly. It's basically a "grinding DLC".

I bought it (because it's dirt cheap) and use it liberally, but I was puzzled by the concept. Yesterday I did a Google search for "grinding DLC" and it seemed Awakening was the game that started the trend in the RPG genre, then I found out the new Shin Megami Tensei IV also has paid DLC made specifically for grinding.

What's your opinion on this trend? These DLCs go for very cheap prices, but in the end you still have to buy them. Using them feels like you're sort of "cheating" or something like that, because it didn't come with the game. I'm used to Pokémon and grinding, since in Pokémon you can grind indefinitely and in most later games grinding is actually encouraged (Vs. Seeker, Audino, Exp. Share revamp). IMO Pokémon is a grindy RPG due to the way it's set up (wild Pokémon are much lower in levels than your party Pokémon).

I personally think that, if the developers wanted to give players the option to grind, they should've done do within the limits of the game as it came on release day. In Fire Emblem Awakening you can use Reeking Boxes to grind on Normal difficulty, but it's a bit ironic since Normal is the difficulty where you need grinding the least. On harder difficulties the Reeking Boxes are more expensive and the Risen spawns escalate quickly in difficulty. However, if you want to perfect your 2nd generation characters with the ideal skills to take on the harder DLC maps, you're going to need the Golden Pack DLC, because nothing else in the game allows you to level characters quickly enough.

So, what's your opinion on this?

I have it and to be honest, it makes the game almost a thousand times easier. Before I had it, most maps would take me at least two tries to finish because I'd always have someone die but after finding the DLC, you get addicted to the grind because you obviously want your team to be OP. In return, you get some OP ass character like Donnel that can solo everything making the game boring.

This is only for the story-line gameplay though. In my opinion, the DLC maps are end-game material since some opponents still seem pretty difficult despite the countless hours of grinding in the DLC. There is some point where your character is near its cap and the DLC grinding area barely gives exp unless you kill the lv 30 ones.

TL;DR - Grind if you want, but if used during story-line gameplay, it makes it too easy. WAY TOO EASY. I could easily just send out a one-man party out in the field and just click "A" for the rest of the time, don't even need to move.