Absolutely, web fonts are overrated. For most websites (i.e. websites where the majority of your readers have no idea what the difference between a font and a typeface is), your best bet in terms of speed and cross-platform aesthetics is to use a stack of system fonts.
I like seeing the work those guys put in to that. My current (admittedly lazy) tendency is to use whatever default serif/sans-serif the user's browser has set. My reasoning is that if the user cares at all, they've set that font. Otherwise it doesn't matter. I might use one of those font stacks instead in the future.
See http://www.awayback.com/revised-font-stack/ for examples of well chosen cross platform font stacks that each achieve a certain style.