Exactly, there's a layer (integration testing) where I usually do need to have a test against a mock to validate my function doing the external call is passing

Exactly, there's a layer (integration testing) where I usually do need to have a test against a mock to validate my function doing the external call is passing a request I expect. I can break it down into a parameter supplier function that will generate the proper request params and test that but I don't see any gain in abstracting that away simply to avoid mocks.