Best Django practise - when to use views and when to use tags
In Django 

a "view" is a callable that is responsible for handling a request and returning a response, 
a template tag is a piece of code that will be executed in the context of rendering a template and will either push something in the template's context or render some text or markup.

Oranges and apples, really, and it should be quite clear when you want a view and when you want a template tag. 
And yes, using inclusion tags (or a full-blown custom tag using a template to render some data) is "an accepted Django standard" - actually that's exactly what template tags are for.
I'm in the process of delving into Django into a little more depth - and I now have certain blocks around my website which are recycled, but not necessarily suited to a being placed in base.html and then sprinkled with {% extends /root/to/base.html %}.
So, I have a bespoke widget I have created which is utilised on certain pages but in different configurations, is it best to register and inclusion tag and reference the template you want to accompany those stored variables and arrays/lists/dictionaries etc..
For me it seems easier to define tags and then dot these around where I need them and just make edits to the template that is registered with that tag method? But is this the accepted Django standard?