Traps and Syslog monitoring is optional. Configuring Traps on the device will not extend any additional polling to the device.
Traps are used for Out of Band Polling for when you need to know about a Device Status change. Traps works best for when you need to know about a change right now and work best for when there is a Device Configuration Change, Routing Change, or a Port Status change.
The majority of customers use the Traps or Syslog viewer for Alerting. Long term, 1 year +, Trap and Syslog Storage they use Kiwi Syslog to remove any performance impact from the SQL Server.