As you say...it is a matter of preference and what works for your teaching and learning style.

My preference comes from how I started. Back as a teenager, I began with Wing Chun. I had a strict and traditional teacher. I spent a full year learning the first form and NEVER even saw the second much less third form during that time. With him, you did NOT ask to learn more - if you did, he would make you show what you had up until that point - AND rip it to shreds with pointing out all of your errors - leaving you with a statement like "Why do you press to learn new when you haven't got the old? - Aiyahhh"

I was lucky. I NEVER got that statement - I saw it happen once early on and made a mental note not to go there.

To this day, my first form is ingrained with little deviation. However, I had 6 or 7 classmates start with me. At the end of the year, I was the only one still there.

My final and current teacher is the opposite. Everything is by example, show a logical chunk and then refine it. If the desired target routine is at too high a level for the student, a similar but easier routine is taught first to lay a foundation.

In the second approach, people seem to get more benefits and stick with it longer. those with talent but lacking patience are around long enough to begin to teach them patience.

While in an old style martial sense, this may not fly, in a modern world, to keep with the old ways may mean that all of the arts are eventually lost...

Evolution....and choice. What a combination