I did! You can do that with most providers. If they don't explicitly offer it, just tell them you want to switch to an tablet/iPad plan. I pay $15/month for a 3 GB data-only plan and $1/month for a VoIP number that routes SMS to email/app (voip.ms), for those 2 people I know who still use SMS.
Hmm. Convenience is the exact reason I'd give for staying away from "a lot of messaging apps" and using primarily SMS. I've got a couple friends that really like Signal, so that's the only other messaging app I ever install.