Is an SQL Server trace 'considered harmful' in production?
The latest version of the RML Utilities (09.04.0051 as at today) support Extended Events tracing, so maybe you could work with your DBAs to do some controlled tracing.  A screenshot from the help file:


They do however have a point because the default trace template provided with RML includes statement-level events (SQL:StmtStarting, SQL:StmtCompleted, SP:StmtStarting, SP:StmtCompleted), ie every statement in every proc.  This could easily bring a server to its knees under the wrong conditions, eg scalar function in a SELECT statement running across a big table.

Extended Events (XE) were a bit limited in versions prior to 2012, but it is more lightweight.  You still need to be careful as SQL statement-level events will still incur overhead for very intensive workloads (sqlserver.sp_statement_starting, sqlserver.sp_statement_completed, sqlserver.sql_statement_starting, sqlserver.sql_statement_completed).  Execution plan capture (sqlserver.query_post_execution_showplan) can also be intensive.  Consider using the XETraceCaptureDefLightWeight.sql template which is provided and includes less events.

In summary I suggest moving to XE and using the lightweight XE definition provided with the latest versions of RML.