Gold leafing doesn't work too well as to get a burnished finish you need to use water sizing rather than oil sizing for it to keep a tight 'grip' of the leaf.
Matt pure golds can be deposited to give a burnishable finish very similar to fire gilding.
Generally the biggest difference is the depth of the deposit. Fire gilding will give a depth of between 10 to 30 microns, whereas most modern plating is rarely more than about 5 and usually less than 1 especially for decorative plating.
Additionally most commercial platers will use a bright 'hard' gold over a bright nickel base as you would require at least 3 microns minimum without the nickel.
Bright 'hard' deposits are alloyed golds with minute traces of iron, nickel or cobalt to increase the hardness of the gold to resist wear.
Modern mat and burnished gold finishes are often produced with a matt lacquer over the gold and 'burnished' by removing the lacquer rather than smoothing the gold. It's very common for the production of buttons to do it this way.
It's not exactly illegal in this country as such, rather the health and safety requirements are very extreme and expensive for the fume scrubbers required and the penalties for failure very severe.
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