I prefer to let the vision of the initial designers remain, as it is what I paid for. Rooting, modding, over clocking.. ehh not my cup of tea.
Actually, regaining the initial vision is the biggest benefit to rooting. What most consumers use is nowhere near what Android was meant to be. After it leaves Google it gets cut apart by the phone manufacturer and they put their flavor on the operating system, be it a skin or a complete overhaul. Then it goes to the service provider where they disable a bunch of functionality that they don't want you to have and add a bunch of bloat that their getting paid to include on the phone (trial versions, proprietary software, and other "forced advertising") then it had to go back to the phone manufacturer to make sure what the service provider screwed up doesn't hinder bar functionality of the phone. This continues back and forth until both parties are satisfied with "functionality" removal of options, leaving you with a mere glimmer of what Android could be.
This is most noticed by the delay in updates for most phones, as this process has to happen again with each new version of Android that is released. Meanwhile, someone with a "developer" phone running vanilla Android gets the update as soon as it's released from Google, and rooted users running custom roms can actually get "pre-release" versions ahead of the pack that the online development community have already polished to perfection. Many times, said developer community will actually fix bugs and glitches faster than Google and immeasurably faster than any of the manufacturer/provider skinned phones.
If that's what we're paying for, I'll gladly pay less for the phone without their software. But that's not the way it works. We pay less for phones with all the junk because it's subsidized by the garbage they add on.
But, maybe that's just my opinion.
YMMV.
Rex, I tell you what, I sure miss CM.
Still no reliable root for the build version on my S4. If I wasn't on my company's cell plan I'd go back to my S3 in a heartbeat, just for the flexibility!