The benefits are that the when top cropping you get all healthy and clean yeast. If you want to harvest yeast, this is a better way than rinsing the "dirty" yeast at the bottom of a fermentor. You get nearly no trub and no dead yeast cells. As far as contamination, to me this is no more riskier than taking a hydrometer sample from a bucket. I can open a bucket, crop some yeast with a sanitized spoon and put it into a sanitized mason jar, and then close the bucket lid in two minutes or less. As an aside, I find it easier to use a Burton Union type system as a yeast catcher/harvester.