Personally, I prefer thru-hole; I still haven't tried my chops at SMD work. I think I could handle large components where the pitch is fairly big, but some of those components have such a fine pitch that unless I was an expert, I would be afraid of screwing something up.
Something I wonder, though - other than likely using up more board real estate (which can be an issue), would it be possible to set up the board to allow for easier smd work, especially by novices? Something like larger pads, with special "wells" where the lead of the smd component (thinking ICs mainly here) fits between or in a groove or something (kinda like the "smartboards", iirc, products)?
If a method could be developed to allow SMT work by novices without the possibility of frying or shorting out an expensive device, that would be a nice way to move into SMT to build skills for more standard SMT boards.