If you were going to crochet and you could pick what stitch you wanted to do would you rather do a dc or a hdc?

I like the looks of the hdc but I would rather crochet the dc because I think it's faster but the hdc is nice because it's a pretty stitch. With a hdc in the rnd I'm crocheting the first stitch in the ss making the actual first hdc smaller and harder to put the hook through so I have to use a smaller hook to start so I can get it through the stitch and I'm not so sure I like the way it ( putting the first hdc in the ss ) looks when crocheting a hat. I normally use a dc when making a hat but there's one hat that's a hdc. I know I could probably do it in dc instead of hdc but the pattern says hdc and it's a pretty stitch.