US-05 is essentially my default yeast, unless I have a specific reason or wild hair to try something else I'll usually use 05. I have sprinkled it dry on top of the wort, rehydrated according to instructions, and used it with yeast starters and it always works. Most of the time I will do a starter, and of course when I do it takes of quite a bit quicker than sprinkling dry or rehydrating - about 12 to 24 hours faster. I usually ferment in the mid 50s to lower 60s without problems, although reaching final gravity does take a couple days longer than when I ferment in the upper 60s.
As the previous poster noted, US-05 is probably as close as you can find to an all purpose yeast, even if it is disliked by some of the folks on this forum.