[junk_disposal]

>you can easily run your own pkg repository with binaries compiled for multiple architectures (with build enviroments isolated with "jail") and providing the full range of compilation customization included in the ports tree.

Sure, if you're running a few servers. It doesn't help if you're running one though.

And it still takes time to compile and build.

[phicoh]

It's a choice. If you can live with binary packages produced by the FreeBSD project, why not use those?

If you want something special, why not set up poudriere and update during the night. Realistically, if you are running FreeBSD in production, you want a spare server to try new releases, so you can just as well use that box to build binary packages.

[boomboomsubban]

It can help by letting you offload the work to something like a vps, which also negates the compile/build time.