Please don't take my comments too seriously, as I've only been cooking for about a month, and only cooked on my Mini WSM 3 or 4 times; the Mini WSM is my only smoker, and I've never used a real 18.5 or 22" WSM... Having said that...
The first cook I did on my mini was good, but I found it a little difficult to control the temperature, especially to get it up to more than about 215 degrees. Now this was the absolute first time I'd ever cooked on a smoker, again, keep that in mind.
I was having a lot of fun making the mini WSM, so naturally I wanted to make a charcoal ring anyway... just for the fun of it. Once it was made, I used it on my next cook, and started using the Minion method. Minion starting is a lot easier with a charcoal ring, and I found that the burn was very consistent and easy to control. For practice and as an experiment, I let the cooker using the Minion method one evening, and just left it burning slowly overnight. It had gone out by the morning, and I didn't monitor the temperatures at all since lighting it, but absolutely all of the briquettes had burned, I was left with 100% fine grey ash... I was pretty impressed, and I think the basket made that possible.
In short... in my (very) limited experience, a basket makes for a more 'controlled' burn.
I'm using a SJG by the way.