Well, even if we we'd ever taken a vote on these boards (which we have not), then it's still hardly a consensus that "archive and install is the way to go."
Outside of the Mac geek community which gathers here, hardly anyone does anything but an upgrade. This is the way Apple intended this process to work, which in the overwhelming majority of instances, it does -- without incidence, and with the minimum amount of disruption. The other methods are useful when you have a problem which you can't solve any other way, so before deciding, consider whether you have any problems that need fixing. Also understand that if you do Archive and Install, some applications may not work without reinstalling them, and any fonts you may have installed previously will have to be located and reinstalled. These are some of the trip-and-fall hazards of the Archive and Install process that hardly anyone who recommends this mentions beforehand.
Advice: If you have a software problem that you know about, and have had no success with fixing, then Archive and Install may make sense as a first step. If you have no, known unfixable software problems, then try upgrade first. In the unlikely event that this process causes problems, you can always Archive and Install as a second step.
