Guess it's time to put my 2 cents in. I like both, but each in their own way.
Over the years, in my travels, I have operated on anywhere from a small home layout to large home and club layouts that would cover a basketball court. Some operating sessions were informal, on small layouts, just running trains, and then there were operating sessions that were run on a fast clock, with a dispatcher and the whole works. (Even though I am still a DC operator, I do appreciate DCC for operations on large layouts). It's great to see long trains pass each other, with local trains heading to a passing siding to let through trains pass. It was always interesting to have been assign to a local and try to do your switching and keep the main lne clear, or to have been assigned yard duty and have to make up, or break down trains with trains moving in and out of the yards.
Some of the layouts were in various stages of construction, while some were finished with a high degree of detail. It's great to see numerous trains going about their business at one time. One thing that personally bugged me (I do not want to offend any one) were layouts that had so much track crossing over itself numerous times leaving little or no room for scenery or town and industries.
For me, being a lone operator, I chose to build a switching layout. My railroad is a point to point, short line/branch line that connects to the Northern pacific at one end, and the Milwaukee Road at the other. Using hidden staging tracks, I can run a train continuously, but don't very often. With a grade, and passing sidings, train lengths are limited to about 14 cars. The mainline makes one trip through the layout, leaving plenty of room for towns, industries and scenery. Many of the industries on my layout not only ship to points beyond my layout on the staging tracks, but to other industries on my layout. It can keep a single operator extremely busy.
I guess it up to each modeler to model what they want, after all, it's their railroad. While I do enjoy running on vast layouts, I also enjoy switching, plus being a single operator, I have less track to maintain.