Painting VJs - to fill or not to fill

Over the years we have painted all of our internal pine VJ (tongue & groove) walls. Generally we have filled the gaps with No More Gaps or similar product. After a number of years, the paintwork is generally still in reasonable condition, but there is a lot of cracking around many of the joints, which makes the whole thing look pretty ordinary.

The house is on a pretty solid slab, but I guess there is still enough movement between the VJs to cause problems.

It's time to repaint some of the rooms, and this time I'm considering just not filling the gaps - I guess this is how it would have been done originally.

I'd just be interested if anyone has had any experience with painting VJs - are there better products to use? maybe sikaflex? or is it basically better to just not fill gaps?

Steve


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