For the now typical sunshine sunday traffic pattern hopper with occasional 15min flights to the next coffee field a LSA is totally sufficient. Even long flights are possible - if you have a friend flying alongside with a certified plane taking all the luggage ... What keeps me from these light variants is: too light for me, not sufficient range, restrictions everywhere (the most fields I fly into are not allowed for the little ones).
When I talk to the fellow pilots and compare the figures, the only big difference is: their flying material is 40-50 year younger and they spend about 10-15% less money TCO per flight hour - unless like one of them flying about 800 hours a year in a Tecnam, but that is another story -> I keep my old Cessna.