New(ish) shooter with questions on sights

[rokada]

Sometimes they don't understand that if they CAN call their shots and they are going someplace they don't like, that fixing it with a sight adjustment is a band-aid that will come back to bite them later.

Sometimes people develop a quite consistent bad habit and compensate for it by adjusting sights. The worst thing is it seems to work, because this way they are able to achive some - albeit false/misleading - progress.
I can't tell exactly when it was but I remember being told that sight adjustment is there to compensate for the changing environmental conditions (including ammo type/lot), not human problems. I guess not everyone was blessed with this knowledge...

[rokada]

I would never advise a shooter to not adjust his sights based on shifting groups just because they should be able to stand in the same position in theory.

I assume we're talking about shooters that are way past the trigger jerking or wrist/palm/fingers tightening phase.
When shots keep grouping but shift my first thought would be something is not OK (ie has changed, and I do not think changes during shooting are OK) with the shooter's body or holding the pistol. Perhaps warmup was too short and the muscles did not reach their standard level of tiredness and/or stretching before shooting started and only reached it after like 20-30 shots. Perhaps the shooter should reverify the position of the palm in/on the grip. Perhaps the index finger is not correctly placed on the trigger shoe.
Yes, adjusting sights might be a short term workaround for too little warmup. But it's just because there is no time to perform more warmup when one is already shooting. One should remember to prepare properly next time rather than to rely on resorting to adjusting sights.

[KZMNT]

We aren't in disagreement on this. If a shooter has set their windage all the way to the left but is still shooting top right, then they're definitely hooking their shots, and everything else you've listed is completely true. But if the shooters group has drifted slightly off of the ten over the course of match, and they've checked off all other factors, I'd assume it's totally reasonable to adjust the pistol sights.

At the very least, sighting aside, I still urge the use of the sub six hold, and against painting the front post for centre hold use.

[rokada]

But if the shooters group has drifted slightly off of the ten over the course of match, and they've checked off all other factors, I'd assume it's totally reasonable to adjust the pistol sights.

Sure, once other factors are excluded it's perfectly OK to use the feature you have paid so much money for: precise, reliable and repeateable sight adjustment screws :)

At the very least, sighting aside, I still urge the use of the sub six hold, and against painting the front post for centre hold use.

For me that goes without saying. Colors are just distractions. The only contrast needed is black (sights) against white (target at sub six position).