Well I still download all .rpm files manually or semi-automatically anyway, because some of the 32bit packages and all cpu independent packages will be installed on 2 computers, plus I like to have everything downloaded in advance for when I switch on my old desktop occasionally.
As for being quicker, well, I have zero downtime and keep most things working even on a half-upgraded system. And I upgraded to F17 while it was in beta, so had the final version installed before the release date. I was planning to do a fresh install for F17, due to the /bin and /sbin directories being replaced with symlinks to /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, but I decided to run the conversion script from a Live CD and take the opportunity to convert the filesystems to ext4 at the same time.
The distribution upgrade isn't really any different to having an update for every package, and sometimes they didn't even update all packages.
