@Bearcat44, I'm simply describing what drove me away from CVS, namely, their practices that made me feel like either:
a) I needed to spend an unreasonable amount of time analyzing solicitations and strategizing about the best time and promotions to use to buy various types of products, or:
b) Feeling like I was leaving money on the table.

It is great that CVS has coupon policies that are lenient in some ways (although my local CVS was unreasonably strict in other ways, such as by refusing to honor a coupon that I left at home, even though they could easily have applied it and then cancelled it so it couldn't have been re-used). I understand that many people benefit from Extracare and don't mind (or even enjoy) optimizing savings, at the expense of time and loss of privacy. And I normally don't mind tracking sales and coupons, but IMO CVS has gone way overboard, making it a headache-inducing chore.

But as far as prescriptions go, normally CVS promotions don't work with prescription co-pays anyway. If I was limited in where I get my Rx, I could still go to CVS for them, but use other avenues to get non-prescription products.

In my area, I use a small locally-owned pharmacy for prescriptions and occasional OTC purchases, and a grocery store chain that does not use loyalty cards for many other items that I'd normally buy in a pharmacy. I also shop online. I use Walgreens on occasion -- even though they have loyalty cards, they're a lot more straightforward to use than the CVS rigmarole.