Just finished a one-month trip to China. I did fine without these technologies although once in a while a clerk would be annoyed having to get me change in small coins.
I took several trains. Virtually no wait to pick-up tickets. And security is now much faster. All Chinese go through an electronic gate to enter. So there is nobody at the desk where they compare your passport with your tickets.
In any case, tickets are supposed to disappear by the end of the year. We (foreigners) may be the only people at the ticket counters.