We do use fabric softener.
Ages ago I changed to the dryer sheets, though, because the kids would dump in 5x what was needed. Seriously. Plus, unless you had a softener ball, you would have to run the rinse cycle again (which is what we always did when I was a kid).
I would buy 4 boxes of dryer sheets - 40 count. One box to each of the kids, two for husband & me. And they had to last 9 months. If they ran out before I did? Too bad - because they were doing one load a week, each (all colors together, ugh), while I was doing 3 (I separate whites/colors/jeans). So for every 1 they used, I was using 1.5...