HGH is effective for powerlifting if stacking it with Testosterone (or derivates) and/or insulin - however, HGH is expensive and most wouldn't consider such a cylce any cost-effective. They usually stack Testosterone with tren/dbol/halo/oxy and so on. Tren is good for strenght gains, it also burns fat - if a powerlifter wants to gain fast much weight (+strenght), they will use Test/Oxy stacks or whatever so, they are a lot off combinations depending on the(ir) goals.
At high competition levels HGH will be used (together with steroids),
nevertheless, I agree to
@heapsreal If you ask a bodybuilder or powerlifter 99% would pick steroids.