I'm far faster changing my default audio device with the new quick settings menu than going Start > Control Panel > Sound > Right click audio device > Set as Default. Now I just click the quick settings > the little sound device icon > chosoe a device.
I'm far faster changing my WiFi network with the new quick settings menu than going Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center (if using Vista or newer) > Network Devices > right click network adapter > Connect / Disconnect > go through Wizard process to set up new network. Now I just click the quick settings, click the little arrow to list WiFi networks, choose the network, click connect. Way faster.
I'm also generally far faster finding whatever setting in the Settings menu over trying to figure out which tab on which little Control Panel widget some obscure setting is, because there's a useful search box that will pull up practically any setting these days. Sure, maybe if you had every setting in Control Panel memorized you could be faster, but I'm far faster just searching for the setting I'm looking for at the moment for anything I'm not regularly changing.
The new Settings area, now that it actually has most things, is generally a far better experience unless you had everything in Control Panel committed to muscle memory. I do acknowledge though there are still a few things that aren't as good, but I imagine they'll get better. For most things most users actually mess with on a regular basis, it seems to me the Settings app is better than Control Panel. The only thing that really frustrates me with Settings now on a regular basis is only being able to have one instance of the app open at a time, a dumb limitation.
Every time I'm needing to mess with something in ancient versions of Windows these days is now a pain despite me growing up with it. So many things nested in non-obvious areas, things hidden behind tab after tab of settings and menus. Right click that, go to properties, click that, go to properties on that, click that button, go to the Options tab, click Configure, and there you go that's where you set that value. Easy! Versus typing something like the setting you want to set into the search box in Settings and have it take you right to that setting.