Benefit of form helper?

[eluser]Shpigford[/eluser]
I'm curious...what's the real benefit of the form helper?

Like what's the benefit of typing this:

Code:

form_hidden('username', 'johndoe');

Rather than this:

Code:

<input type="hidden" name="username" value="johnodoe" />

Sure it's a tad shorter...but is that the only real difference?