I agree. I'm doing ZZ-b (according to some here, not real ZZ, but whatevs) and if I don't see a block right-away after the EO-line, I just place the remaining cross-edges, so essentially I make an EO-cross. It's much harder to track 3 pieces than 2 and, maybe it's just me, but doing well-known 21 F2L algs is faster than intuitively cramming blocks together. Also, the advantage is that you always see everything, no unknown, hidden edges.
If I see a block right-away, of course, I'll do that first, but, honestly, that's not in the majority of cases.
Also, sometimes the edge-orientation is so difficult and long that I can't preinspect the moves for the line edges - I have to place them afterwards and why not cram in the remaining cross edges at the same time? While placing the line-edges, almost always the remaining cross edges appear and it's very easy and almost not any more moves to place them as well in the same process.
One advantage of block-building is that you can assemble the block "the-other way around", so a corner and a cross-edge first, followed by assembly with the correct center-"non-cross"edge-1x1x2block. But it's actually harder to find, at least for me, because I use white on D and it's really faster for me to find a cross-edge. So I seldom use that and if I do, I find the solve gets a bad time.
