Having bikes with both rigid and suspension forks, I have found that I lose a little bit of pedaling power when standing and pedaling hard on the hybrid with suspension fork. This usually happens when pushing myself hard at moderate speed to get through an intersection or up some hills. This is shown by the suspension fork bouncing up and down in sync with my pedaling. I compensate for most of this with a circular pedaling technique and a faster cadence instead of mashing the pedals down at a lower cadence. My road bike has a rigid fork, and find that a bit more of my power makes it to the back wheels in similar situations.
Unless your roads are horrible, the shock fork won't give you any significant comfort improvement over a cromo rigid fork. Where a good suspension fork can really help is when riding over rough terrain. That's why my hybrid serves me so well when riding the washed out dirt paths with my son.
With all this being said, the preference of a shock fork over a rigid fork is a personal opinion. When I took my wife bike shopping, she ended up choosing a bike with a suspension fork. She wasn't looking for any particular features. She simply liked the ride of the Sedona with suspension fork best.