botgeist
Please let me share my opinion. Some people will agree with this but others will say I'm talking crap. So take it as my opinion and only as my opinion.
It all depends on what you want.
If you are new to Arduino I strongly advice to use the "idiot proof" Arduino IDE. Once you start feeling limited by the Arduino IDE it may be time to look at alternatives.
As I have an IT background I tend to look for an alternative in the IT tools (that is eclipse or visual studio )
Eclipse is all free where there is a license constraint with visual studio.
I believe people coming from a electronics background will prefer AVR studio or other tools in that area (I don't know this area).
Really old people

who are used to have a high level of control and are used to "administrative operations" will prefer to control their own makefiles.
Notepad++ together with the use external editor in Arduino is a in between route where you have a good source code editor together with the Arduino IDE "Idiot proof approach"
Note that all these tools have some kind of makefiles. A makefile is a file that contains info on how you make your result (a hex file in the Arduino case)
The Arduino IDE completely hides this from you. the makefile tools do not hide any makefile capability to you. Don't think makefiles are difficult. It is just anther thing to learn.
I hope this make things a bit clearer to you.
Best regards
Jantje