Of course, you are free to use whatever method that you decide. It's just that using the string control codes is easier than scripting really.
I can't agree with that. It's purely different, and requires more esoteric, arcane memorisation. I often feel that SCCs are more 'hackish' as justin puts it, than scripting; but that's me. I think it's relative, to what we feel at ease doing.
If ZC had a nice, external string editor, that'd be fantastic, but we've discussed that in the past: It doesn't exist.
I think my own reluctance in using SCCs, is that I hardcode my important strings, so using control codes inside ZScript just isn't productive, when I can use expressions, and arguments that have names, or constants to do most of the same. They don't permit the same level of refinement either, and I don't believe you can do anything with SCCs that you cannot also do in ZScript.
People who've used ZQuest for many years, are probably used to SCCs, because they were mandatory to do these special effects in earlier builds of ZC, but now, they're primarily there for backward-compatibility.
I rarely use anything other than text speed, and colour; and when I completely shift to Tango, I'll need to use Tango's special formatting codes for that too.