I was reading on Sheldon's site that buying a brake that includes the 'entire shoe assembly' will give better performance then just replacing the pad.

I've always used pads like these where after the pad wears out the entire 'shoe' is disposable:




This is the alternative. With these you have the option of buying new pads and continuing to use your old shoes:



Which do you prefer? If you have used both, do you agree that the 'disposable shoes' yield better performance? It makes sense that they might given that a 'one piece' system might be more solid in comparison to a system with removable parts, although it's hard to say for sure without first hand experience.

In terms of cost savings, a pair of 'disposable pads and shoes' is about $11, and just replacing the actual pad would be about $8.