I think that traditional characters are easier to remember and recognize, but much harder to write (by hand). I would argue about easiness of simplified characters. Anyway I like the look of traditional characters better. (Except for some characters that I like better in their simplified form.) I'm learning Japanese these days, so I don't have enough time to spend on Chinese. But I think it's essential for a Chinese language learner to be familiar with both traditional and simplified characters (at least be able to recognize both). P.S. Oh.. And I think that it's much easier to learn simplified characters after traditional ones then vise versa...

Traditional Chinese and monkeys.

I can write both, but I prefer traditional. It really isn't that much harder than simplified, and it looks nicer (in my opinion).

Traditional is better. It does not discard the cultural references, the reason the character was constructed in this particular way. Traditional, easier to read and understand. Simplified, easier to write and speed in completion. Take a example, in software. Ada is more verbose. C is easier to write. When it comes to maintenance and debugging. Ada triumphs. Which you prefer? WYSIWYG or command line interface of operating systems... eg Windows or Unix? The greatest importance is for the ease of the end user, not the programmer.

If your want to learn chinese as a foreign friend, better start from simplifed chinese,becuase it has a easy structure. But if you want to know more about chinese culture, better learn traditional,because for some traditional chineses, we can know their meanings only from the structure, and some have marks of history and culture. Sometimes people in china print traditional chinese word on T-shirt,and it's very popular.