I was really happy with my perpetual ebb/flow SOG in coco setup. Cranked out lots of nice compact plants like clockwork as I searched for keepers. Then fusarium came into my grow room. Plants in biologically active soil allowed me to have successful grows again. This seems more suited to larger plants, but it is easier in many ways.
It's more natural, it's not slowly polluting the ecosystem and poisoning our drinking water and adding on to every other bad living habit we have. It's cheaper and you can make your own with a few different manures and natural amendments. But it's more complicated and is not like following a fertilizer companies directions, and can easily burn plants if you're not careful. It's more forgiving for bigger plants with big root systems. Chem fertilizer are easier and usually give great predictable results and can conveniently be bought and don't usually leave odours after use.... It's less time consuming then making your own. Man made convenience vs natural plant evolution.
the only reason it was attractive to me was after green merchant and before legality was unfolding I truly feared prohibition so intense that going to the hydro store would be a big risk but if I knew how to get the same results using organic supplies from the nursery I would be safe and thus the journey began
The academics in soil science say we dont understand all the relationships and functions preformed between plants and the soil they live in but, the chemistry experts say they understand it and can do it better.
I choose to grow in an organic fashion for a number reasons, one of the biggest being, the plant evolved for untold hundreds of thousands of years in "organic" soil.