Instant start is the best if it didn't stress the lamps so much.  Granted, there is an annoying start-up delay, but I think it's pretty much the best thing out there for home use. 

1.) Silent
2.) Lower minimum starting temperature than magnetic rapid start (0*F vs 50*F)
3.) No 120Hz modulation that interferes with video/photo
4.) automatic power compensation in response to line voltage fluctuation
5.) Superior system efficacy
6.) Takes the best care of lamps of all ballasts out there

I prefer high CRI lamps, which have very low persistence phosphor, so the lack of 120Hz modulation is very important for me.  I also like it SILENT. 

I agree with all of the points you brought up. Because of those advantages, I have installed quite a few program start ballasts. However, I'm not as happy with the reliability of electronic ballasts and I have been having serious radio interference problems with them. Those two drawbacks are significant enough for me that I am no longer willing to install electronic ballasts. In addition, all of the electronic programmed start ballasts I've seen on the market are made in China and I avoid buying products from China and their neighbors.

-Nelson

Personally in my home, I'd prefer programmed start for hard-wired electronic ballasts.  They get switched often and run short durations each start and PS would be just so much easier on them.  For a short time, I had an electronic IS light in a spare room.  In 6 years the tube ends were heavily blackened with one tube burned out, where on my magnetic RS fixture after 11 years, the tubes have only slight blackening.

Currently all my hard-wired fluorescent lights in my house are magnetic rapid start.  The way they are used, I don't see any advantage to converting them to electronic.

Programmed start also seems more reliable....I see it at my job, where they are programmed start in the back room and the instant in other areas and in older fixtures....

The program start ballasts seems more reliable too...I don't see programmed start ballast burn out as much...

I think they are more reliable simply because for the money they could be better made.
And if they are real "programmed start" (and not the CFL-like PTC parody), they have to use more complex controller, what usually contain the EOL protection by default, so does not stress the power parts, when the lamp fail.
Cheap ballasts use ferrite ring controlled inverter, what is (in reasonable complexity and without significant cost penalty) practically impossible to shut down, unless the starting resonant circuity is broken (= using lamp filaments as EOL fuses in EU style circuits).

I love programmed start electronic ballasts. They prolongs the lamps life to 20,000-24,000 hours, they have usually zero dB noise and also increase the efficiency of the lamps.
In the kitchen of my father home, there is a low cost fixture, with a small electronic ballast for two T5 HO lamps of 54W. Being a programmed start ballast is a luck, becuase most of the T5 fixtures of the same chinese factory is instant start. Finding a progammed start fixture for T5 lamps in home centers shops in Israel usually a matter of luck, because THE MAJORITY of the household fixtures for krypton buffered T5s are made in China and contains an instant start ballast.
Also these shops tends to hide behind the krypton buffered T5s fixtures also fixtures for F8T5 lamps with instant start electronic ballast, which their lamps being argon buffered aren't belongs to the family of the modern T5 lamps. The F8T5 lamps in these instant start electronic fixtures tends to have a lifetime similar to incandescents or even less.