I've never had to shim a neck yet, and I've yet to hear of anyone needing to. One of my Strats actually has an adjuster at the base of the neck with a small hole in the centre of the neck plate, and that's been redundant since it was bought in 1986. If the neck relief and tremolo are properly set up and you can't get enough string height I think there must be something wrong with the guitar.
Sometimes I think we can get bogged down in so much detail.
Len