I never take the fish out.
Approx. 1/4 to 1/3 water change every 7-10 days using a gravel vacuum around the areas I can reach. Every 4 weeks depending on how dirty it's getting I take all the large rocks and stuff out and give it a good gravel vacuum then put everything back in. Fish just stay in the tank. I only clean the filter when it starts getting blocked up (6ish months) and even then just rinse it around in a bucket of tank water to keep the bacteria colony going.
All up, probably takes me 15mins most weeks and about 45mins-1 hour once a month. Piece of piss and a small investment in time to have something nice to look and sit infront of instead of the idiot box.
The driftwood you get from the fish stores is usually pretty good, the smaller goldwood type branches dont cloud up the water at all if you soak them for a while first and if you're going to have bottom feeders like bristlenose or plecos you need wood in the tank because they eat it to help them digest food. Bottom feeders are awesome and keeping algae down and keeping the bottom of the tank clean plus the plecos are awesome looking fish. I have 4 bristlenose catfish & 2 plecos in mine.
Edit:
Little video of one of the plecos