Is balancing ranges overrated at low stakes?

Should I just exploit rather than stay balanced?

Good question, but everything depends...

When I play tournaments (freerolls, microstakes and lowstakes), I notice that I really need to exploit their ultra (bad) polarized range perception, they just can't read our movements, they can't understand if we are balancing our open/bet/call ranges.

Otherwise, in lowstakes cash games, people usually play way more better: they can read our movements and they have some range perception, so you can't just exploit them, because they are trying to do the same with you, so, in this modality, you need to be more careful...

When you play against someone with a really unbalanced range, the variance tends to go up, and the swings can get pretty big either way.
So I think you either need to have a solid bankroll and play a balanced style, or come up with a good exploit strategy to take advantage of their range.

At low stakes, players rarely exploit balanced or unbalanced ranges, so perfect balance isn’t crucial. Focus more on solid fundamentals and value betting.