[ano]

It's a matter of personal taste, of course, but direct connect is pretty inconvenient, in my opinion. Although there're obviously some benefits for a team game (easier sharing turns, but):
1. Sharing turns can be easily implemented with setting up redirection at your email account. I do so whenever I play a team game and\or want to share turns. This is pretty easy and needs to be done only once.
2. No warning that the game will soon be hosted
3. No notification of the new turn available
4. No way to view staling data\logs and other useful features available at llamaserver
5. I haven't yet found the way to view score tables. Perhaps they are available from web at Gandalf's server (I don't know) but they're definitely not included in the basic direct-connect engine. Also, a very useful thing.
6. It's really easy to make a mistake when playing by DC. Submitting something wrong by hitting wrong button is pretty easy. Discussable but that's my personal opinion & experience.
7. Regarding "ease of sharing turns". Have you noticed already that once you choose another nation to play, the .trn file of the previously played nation is deleted from the game folder? Thanks god, they don't delete .2h! Yes, it's very easy to share turns, but to have more than one at once you need to
a) download a turn
b) create another folder (with different name)
c) copy the .trn there
d) repeat 4 times
I already created a .bat file for this purpose. Perhaps I may live with it. But is it convenient? Eh, I doubt it not to say the less
8. You need to password protect your pretender while you definitely don't need it with llamaserver. When you have two view turns of 4 nations each turn and reenter the password each time you restart dominions, it's irritating not to say the less

So, all in all, playing by DC is... decent at best. Llamaserver offers much more and there's little chance to make a mistake. I greatly respect all the work Gandalf does for this game and for the whole community, all this is no way aimed against him. I just think that Dominions direct connect engine just sucks in comparison with Llamserver and is no way "cool".