Strip that away and you're left with.... training?
That's kind of what I was thinking as I was walking the dogs and pondering NILIF tonight, assuming I'm reading you correctly.. I was thinking about the benefits people describe (mainly impulse control, which is a big thing to me), and I play so many impulse control games with my dogs, I think we get that "benefit" without having to do NILIF.
I've never read up a ton on NILIF, but I've always heard it discussed as "before the dog does something he wants/gets something he wants, he does something for you first". I've never heard it connected with shaping or anything of the sort, but issuing a command, getting the response and rewarding with what the dog wants.
Sometimes (well most of the time) when my dog wants cuddling or petting, I want to provide it. I don't want to make them do something first. Sometimes they get a cookie because I want a darn cookie myself, and I'm in the pantry already so they can have one too. Sometimes I'm in a hurry and we don't all have to sit before we walk off the porch. I'm not going to turn into the person who can do that sort of thing, although again, if it works for someone, absolutely rock on. Maybe getting hard core about it would help Gusto's sniffing. We shall never know.
They way I see it, doing a "light" version of NILIF...makes it not NILIF. It makes it SomeStuffILIF. Or PILIF if you live in my house