We can ask what advantages the de Vaucouleurs system has over Hubble's own revision as illustrated by Sandage (1961) and Sandage and Bedke (1994). One advantage is that de Vaucouleurs' revision has more cells, about 100 compared to about 20 for the old system. The larger number of cells with only a little extra notational complexity means that de Vaucouleurs classifications provide a better description of what a galaxy looks like without being too unwieldy. The mixed notation for families and varieties also means that we can classify most normal galaxies comfortably within the system.

De Vaucouleurs' treatment of bars and rings is clearly superior to the Hubble revision. The continuity implied by the system means that no cell within the volume has an especially sharp edge. The system brings attention to important details that the Hubble system virtually ignores. These include the recognition of ovals as related to bars, the appreciation of weak bars and recognition of bars in highly-inclined galaxies, the classification of inner rings, and the recognition of outer pseudorings. Consistency of ring classification is also superior.

Another advantage is that about 25,000 bright galaxies have been classified in de Vaucouleurs' system over the whole sky compared to about 10,000 in the Hubble system, mostly in the north. This is one reason why most astronomers use de Vaucouleurs types. Major sources of de Vaucouleurs classifications include de Vaucouleurs (1963), the Southern Galaxy Catalogue (Corwin, de Vaucouleurs, de Vaucouleurs 1985), the Catalogue of Southern Ringed Galaxies (Buta 1995), and the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991). Major sources of standard Hubble classifications include the Revised Shapley-Ames Catalogue (RSA, Sandage and Tammann 1987) and the Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies (UGC, Nilson 1973).