[patseguin]

Is this method so much better then running it via shell?
What are the pros and cons for running XBMC in shell?

Only con I can think with she'll is that if you have to quit xbmc for some reason, you have to manually run explorer.exe.

[pr0xZen]

Personally I've used XBMClauncher (with win8.1pro) since my own "get-go" with XBMC - and never had any real issues. Exiting XBMC (if loaded as shell) automaticall loads the Explorer shell. A few points from my experience with it though (boot from internal SSD). I don't run much more else in background (from boot), than Avast anti-virus, uTorrent, TeamViewer and AutoHotKey - and use auto-login for Windows).

• If booting straight to XBMC (as shell), it cuts time from POST (no fastboot) to XBMC home screen, almost in half (~18 seconds vs 35'ish).
  
• If booting straight to XBMC (as shell) - most other (at-startup) background applications will not load until I exit XBMC (as they require the Explorer shell to be running). I can work around this by lauching explorer from XBMCs "Advanced Laucher" add-on, but this causes XBMC to loose focus.
  
• Using XBMCLaucher to let explorer.exe shell load before XBMC - lets all my background at-startup applications boot, before commencing the loading of XBMC. It does, however, as mentioned above - take quite a lot longer from POST to XBMC home screen. This is the solution I use today. I rarely reboot my HTPC anyway - and can easily live with those extra ~20 seconds.

I'm sure there are a lot of tweaks and workarounds that can be done - just sharing my own experience.