[tanewishly]

Hear, hear!

A ToC slide should typically be avoided -- especially if you only show it once.

Advice I heard but don't know the source of: audiences tend to have a "stack" of about 7 items, possibly less. Only put stuff on the stack you are going to use.

A linear story fits well with this advice. A ToC breaks linearity and tries to push all of its items onto the stack, without any payoff. Within 2 slides, the audience has forgotten your ToC slide, since there's no point to keeping it on the stack. Best case, there's some minor payoff -- but almost never worth the cost of saturating the stack. Most often, it is an unnecessary crutch. So unless it is mandatory (could be for students), just make your presentation's narrative flow logically instead.