Any benefit for having the fastest confirmation times?
If you want to be able to use it for day to day purchases you need really fast confirmation times otherwise you will have to go through a centralised service like BitPay.
I would say the new DPOS blockchains will offer the fastest reliable confirmations. (The first one BitShares X will offer BitAsset trading, BitUSD, BitGold etc. & you need fast confirmation times to be able to trade.)
http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/Why_choose_Bitshares%3FTrue. Merchants would definitely have a big advantage with it.
I know people who refuse to accept bitcoin due to long time.