I often hear it repeated around these parts that "ignoring esoterics" seems to be a basic expectation for anyone of a specific power level in the Dragon Ball universe.

Like, fighting off unconventional forms of damage or techniques due to overwhelming power is an expectation of the main cast.

I'm not convinced.

The three best examples I hear are Jiren overcoming a time stop on raw strength alone, Goku ignoring Porunga wish magic and Vegeta resisting Babidi mind control.

1: The Jiren thing I am pretty cool with. They literally say he is stronger then time itself. Makes sense seeing as how he can blow away the entire universe. He is a mind bogglingly powerful creature that can demolish all of local reality. Expecting time to stop a universe buster is kind of like expecting a car seat belt to restrain a person capable of throwing the car 100 feet. The seat belt and time are just single aspects of the greater whole thing. Being capable of obliterating the greater whole thing tracks fine with me!

2: Resisting Porunga is a non feat imo. The Dragon Balls CANT affect anyone stronger then the creator of the Balls without consent. It's an explicit limitation. It has very very little to do with resistance and much more to do with the rules the Namekians had to work with.

3: Majin Vegeta mind control resistance. This is just a feat of willpower imo and has nothing to do with his base power. I certainly wouldn't just grant this level of mind control resistance to say, Goku from the same time period just because. Its a Doctor Doom "my will is my own!" thing and doesnt feel like something you can just handwave to any DB character of that strength or beyond.

Ok. Stuff in favor of esoterics being a threat:

Master Roshi in Super straight up tells us / his opponent that he is glad he got the unconventional threats in the ToP because he was worried that their esoterics would be a problem for his more powerful friends.

Poison works just fine on main cast people if they aren't specifically blocking it with energy like against Frost or the Trio De Dangers.

Heart virus isn't something you can overpower with energy.

Environmental dangers like center of the earth and deep space oxygen levels etc are still threats to Goku.

Mafuba works just fine on people MUCH more powerful then Roshi.

The Copy Vegeta managed to, well... copy Vegeta. I don't remember how that played out admittedly.

Vegeto required a defensive field to be raised before he got absorbed. It was an intended thing, being absorbed with defenses up. That was his plan. It wasnt like he just muscled out of the effect as it was happening with no plan.

Ok! So mileage is probably gonna MEGA vary on this one.
I am totally cool hearing counter arguments. I'm the first to admit that my DB knowledge isnt as well rounded as many other posters, so maybe I'm way off on this.