Recommended OO approach when using CI

Sorry if I am driving people a little crazy with all the questions   I am in the process of learning CI and want to try and do things the "correct" way from the start.

I come from a procedural background and I am trying hard to adopt a more OO approach.  This question might be more PHP related than it is CI related, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I am wondering what is the best approach when working with controllers and models in CI.  I see an awful lot of examples on the web like this:

PHP Code:

$this->load->model('customer_model');

$customer = $this->customer_model->get(123); // Get the customer
$colours = $this->customer_model->get_colours(123); // Get the customers favourite colours

echo $customer->email; // Print their email address

// Print their favourite colours
foreach ($colours as $colour) {
    echo $colour;
}

$success = $this->customer->save(123, array('email' => '[email protected]')); // Change their email address in the DB

if (!$success) {
   die('Something went wrong');
} 


The above is an approach I am very familiar with, and seems similar to many of the examples I see in tutorials and so on.  However I can't help feeling a better approach is:

PHP Code:

$this->load->model('customer_model');

try {

    $this->customer_model->get(123); // Get the customer
    $this->customer_model->get_colours(123); // Get the customers favourite colours

    echo $this->customer_model->get_value('email'); // Print their email address

    // Print their favourite colours
    foreach ($this->customer_model->get_value('colours') as $colour) {
        echo $colour;
    }

    $this->customer_model->set_value('email', '[email protected]'); // Change their email address

    $this->customer->save(); // Save their email address to the DB

    // Or even chaining:
    $this->customer_model->set_value('email', '[email protected]')->save();

} catch (Exception $e) {
    die( $e->getMessage() );
} 


Please let me know what you think. I appreciate your thoughts.