Supposedly, this method allows you to really get the full taste from a single strain/roast/batch/whatever bunch of beans (the opposite of a blend which is like every major bag of beans you can buy). I'm not sure I have a palette that's refined enough to confirm that, but I can definitely taste the difference when I was dialing grind size on my grinder. Not only does the intensity of the coffee change, but there's this weird sour -> bitter scale with a sweet spot in the middle that you need to experiment with to dial in the grind size.
The first time I tried it, it was intense... but really it's not. You're just watching the readout on a scale and a readout on a timer. I can't taste a ton of difference when I play with the timing, but I do when I play with the water/coffee ratio and grind size. Regardless though, I always get a very smooth cup of coffee with the manual method. My wife usually drowns her coffee with super-sweet creamer, and even she can almost drink the pour-over black.
I highly recommend that anyone even remotely interested in playing with the taste of their coffee try it. Getting set up doesn't have to be expensive (burr grinders can be expensive, but manual crank ones are cheap).
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