Yeah, it would be pleasantly argumentative!
It's hard to be sure, but I think I use the Filter Panel much more actively or ad hoc in LR than I think I would use the Aperture equivalent. I will often hide it by pressing the "\" key and I have a number of sets of columns saved - just like the one in my screenshot. The Filter Panel tends to be more of a tool for exploring metadata and drilling down into it, similar to Excel pivot tables if you're familiar with them, so for instance I found a few cases of "Unknown City"
The problem with location fields has always been consistency. Individuals can certainly be consistent and can stick to a "where I stood" or "what's shown", but people change practices over time or make exceptions. Neither is really satisfactory - which is why there are two fields in the IPTC Extension (which no-one ever uses!).
I don't find collections totally satisfactory, and I've never been a big fan of how delete works. I like how Aperture albums hang off the project, and how you can drag a smart album to another source, and in LR it can certainly be a pain to have related folders and collections in two panes. The bigger the catalogue, the more this is a problem. An Aperture-style merging of the two panes might work, though I feel the way forward is for a "left panel filter" which filters all your folders and collections in the same way as the little filter panel at the top of keywords. Progress comes at glacial pace (though at least nowadays the glaciers move faster, if backwards).