I’m too lazy to dig up the right threads on 河豚 or 里心 to link here so I’ll go with the most recent big one I can remember. Most of the vocab on WK is selected as way of adding additional meanings or readings to the associated kanji lessons (or reinforcing the existing ones). This is why we inevitably have people arguing about “useless vocab” and funny pictures of people highlighting them in books later. They really aren’t something to be skipped.
There are learning methods that try to cram kanji alone in a shorter period of time, but I would argue that people that are interested in those probably shouldn’t be using WaniKani. It just doesn’t make sense to me to pay for a service that is opposite of someone’s learning goals when other systems (often free) do what’s needed.
Personally, WK vocab is not amazing. It’s fine for what it is, but definitely not a substitute for digging into the core 2k/6k/10k, mining vocab on your own, taking advantage of wordlists (eg. book clubs, koohi cafe, JLPT), or digging into native dictionary when possible. I still think it’s worth to learn the WK vocab as presented, but I take it with a grain of salt and a general understanding that I will improve upon whatever I learn here as I continue immersive activities.