I've rolled up a good dozen or so chars for 4e using the life path method (on top of translating the char-gen rules into a flowchart), and I've been pretty happy with it as a character generation method. IMO, the 4e rules are a bit of a give and take over the older rule sets, but on the whole, I find them to be a tad better.
Pros:
- Less options leads to less analysis paralysis.
- Not only kept, but streamlined the life path method from 2e, which was always one of my favorite aspects.
- Once you get your feet under you, it's undeniably fast. If you're willing to just accept whatever the dice rolls, it can be even faster. I imagine someone could program out an automatic character generator (if it hasn't happened already) relatively quickly.
Cons:
- It's simple. Perhaps overly so. There's a part of me that misses the higher number of attributes and extreme number of skills. Sometimes the lack of skills don't make a ton of sense, such as how a race car driver suddenly is an expert at driving a tank.
- Specialties seem like a bit of a waste to me. FL could have done something with specialties that could give them a little more pop than just a +1 on skill rolls. As is, they all feel a little generic.
- The Life Path method can occasionally result in some poorly balanced characters within the same group. Depending upon someone's attribute score rolling, you could have one character with a ACCC in their skills, with another character that had an AAAC in their skills. I end up just giving all of my players 4 points to distribute just to keep it balanced.