"We really must move away the argument which is better; rather, one should identify what best suits their personal needs."
Amen to that.
And yes, it is a generalisation, in that I do believe you could do modular in a shorter time frame, indeed I know one guy who is just about done having spent about a year total on it. But the point is, that's full time, which kinda negates some of the benefits of doing mod. Anyway, where you can really make up time with mod is the flying, which can be slow paced at times integrated....I specifically mentioned ground school tho...and I stand by the comment I don't think you could learn the syllabus in less than six months..