I travel a lot for work and don't have much free time when home so the shorter process of extract with speciality grains works great for me. I have made beers that are tasty enough for me, never entered any competitions though. I have been happy with the results and my infrequent brew days (once...
Actually just read about this the other day in Brewing Classic styles by John Palmer. He calls it autolysis which is where yeast feed on each other and produce a rubber odor. To avoid it he recommends racking the beer to remove excess yeast as soon after fermentation as possible.
Hope that helps.