There is no right or wrong best practices answer to your question. It depends on a combination of what looks best for the publication in question and what’s most efficient.
I tend not to use baseline grids since they make the fine-tuning of object placement more difficult for those elements that don’t quite look right when locked to a baseline grid built around, for example, the body copy. On the other hand, for publications, like books and newspapers, a baseline grids can ensure things line up in an orderly way that doesn’t require time-consuming placement by paginators. Some periodical publications resort to developing more complicated baseline grids and workaround styles that straddle the difference between flexibility and grid adherence.
If I’m designing a one-off brochure, there are rarely instances where adhering to a baseline grid is preferable to me just aligning the elements manually in whatever way I think works best. If I still worked at a daily newspaper, where every second counts toward meeting hard deadlines, baseline grids might ensure orderliness, save lots of time and eliminate inconsistencies. If I worked at a magazine that depended on lots of freeform style decisions, a rigid baseline might get in the way. If I worked at a scientific journal where visual interest was clearly secondary to the words, a baseline grid could be very helpful. It really depends on all the variables associated with the project — there are many pros and cons either way.