I don't know if it's any quicker, but there are some advantages that I've found in my own experience in upgrading.  I'm not a developer or extremely advanced webmaster ("webmistress" in my case!).  I run a simple computer user group site and this is the main advantage I've found:

• Ability to take any of the modules normally found on the "Admin" menu and put them on other pages.  This is one of the primary advantages to me.  I no longer have to make everyone and Administrator in order for them to send bulk email newsletters.  I created a "Bulk Email" page (the new name for "Newsletter"), and only gave certain people permission to that page.  I also created a File Manager page and certain people can maintain their own directories without having to be administrators.  I also created a User Accounts page because there are a few people I trust to manage user accounts, but don't want to have them mess with site settings, etc.

The only problems I've had:

• Had a problem sending bulk email asynchronously initially, but the problem went away with a recent update.
• There's a problem with the Search tables.  When the site gets re-indexed, the tables keep growing out of control.  Our site is on GoDaddy and it has a database limit of 200MB.  We kept getting website errors when we tried to add new pages or modules.  I disabled the schedule that indexes the site every 30 minutes.  Then, truncated the tables and re-index by hand.
• When you add a new module, everything is centered by default.  You have to change the alignment from "not specified" to "left".  Upgrading didn't affect existing modules; just new modules that were added since the upgrade.

For reference, our site is at http://topcc.org.