It isn't hard to push a needle through the fabric when you're kiltmaking, and I can't imagine that you would need either a sailmaker's palm or needle pullers. The only thing that would actually be hard to stitch are the leather straps, and you'll punch holes in those.

The thimble is solely to protect your finger. If you stitch 25 pleats with 10 stitches per inch, that's a lot of stitches. Unless you have a really substantial callus, your pushing finger will get very sore. And it's enough stitches that, sooner or later, an ordinary leather thimble will poke through. The ones that I make have a little scrap of metal (roof flashing is what I use) in between two leather layers. That's enough to keep the butt end of the needle from eventually working its way through to your finger after many many stitches. But you don't have to push hard to get the needle through the fabric. And, with a thimble, you can develop one smooth poke-push-pull motion that allows you to stitch quickly.