Tails First or Pins First?

I've cut dovetails using both the tails-first and pins-first methods. When I was taught to do this, it was using the pins-first method, and although I was a beginner, the joints were very tight and accurate. They just required a lot of correction along the way.

Soon afterward, I saw a video by Rob Cosman on making dovetails and he cut the joint tails first. It looked to have many advantages for speeding the process and making it more accurate so I started experimenting. I soon found that a pencil was inadequate for marking the pins, where it worked just fine for marking the tails on a pins-first joint. This caused me a lot of grief as I didn't have a marking knife. I tried a number of solutions, including a sheetrock knife (don't try this at home, kids), but they all compromised the tightness of the joints. Finally, Fine Woodworking did a test on marking knives and included a $3.37 solution: the Xacto Knife. Problem solved, and my tails-first joints got much tighter.

Yesterday, Christopher Schwartz posted a list of reasons why he has adopted the tails-first method, and a couple of them are destined for my shop: gang cuts should be a real time saver, and I'll be trying the rabbetting trick soon after the moving fillester arrives in my shop.