The biggest caveat here is the dependency on Core Data. And yes, this is another what if, but what if you end up deciding you need something that works on iOS and Android?

Or has been more likely, what happens when you start with Realm or some other "free" service, only to have it become too expensive when your app scales?

Further, to me you're building a false dichotomy based on "valuable time" vs "abstractions".

Just how hard would it have been, for example, to have created a data management view that passed the result list to a display view that simply expects an array of data? One minute?

Not to mention the minor fact that you've now probably saved time since we can now easily pass different sets of mock results to our display list view for testing/previews. Which lets us make sure that it's working under any and all conditions (empty lists, singe item, etc.)..

Passing an empty array to a preview view is a heck of lot easier in code than trying to figure our how to get Core Data to give you back an empty data set.

I'd stop viewing abstractions as an enemy, and start looking at ways to make them your friends.