Paddle wheel is great, but I’ll be the devils advocate and say I’ll never not have the gps speedo again. It’s incredible. I’ve never had issues with it dropping out under a bridge. It has a river mode.
It has had a few hiccups where it loses signal (I guess that’s what happening) but it doesn’t race to the throttle. Mine actually decelerates until it catches back up. Which is always fun to watch the terror in the surfers eyes as they get sling towards the boat! Lmao

Now then, here’s the major difference, my boat being newer also has a drive by wire throttle. It’s instantaneous changes. It never lets the boat get more than .2mph off the set speed. Having an electronic throttle body just lets the motor fine tune itself so much easier. If it was a cable actuated TB, yea I’d say paddle wheel all the way.
And having a steering wheel mounted switch to make speed changes on the fly is the s@%t!