When people say that GW is just a DRM thing and drains battery life, is there a way to by pass it then?
Like not using the GW cards?
The card DRAINS QUITE A BIT OF BATTERY AND YOU CAN GET OVER 20% LONGER BATTERY LIFE IF YOU DON'T USE IT [1].
If you use emunand and CIAs for gaming, you just need the card to enter Gateway mode in emunand.
Afterwards you can unplug it, preventing the piece of DRM to drain more battery, and playing the games from the 3DS's SD storage.
Anyway, even if GW is just a piece of DRM, using the DRM protected software provided by GW (launcher.dat) allows you to do many more things than with Sky3DS.
Sky3DS is NOT the way to go, unless you have FW over 9.2.
[1] Sarkwalvein 2014: Several test performed on 3DS XL measuring battery life on different gaming conditions.
PS: As far as I know Sky3DS also drains additional battery, but I haven't tested it.