Early or late branching plot - What's better?

[Clephas]

I'm not going to vote in the poll, though I have my preferences.

In general, in my experience, most of the best VNs either split off early or around halfway through the story. 

Great VNs that Split Early

Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no

Dies Irae

Otome ga Tsumugu, Koi no Canvas

Evolimit

Bullet Butlers

Ayakashibito

Tokyo Babel

Devils Devel Concept

Bradyon Veda

Draculius

Kyuuketsu Hime no Libra

Komorebi no Nostalgica

Tenshi no Hane wo Fumanaide

Izuna Zanshinken

Jingai Makyou

Muramasa

Do you get the picture?  When you are trying to tell a grand story, there are two major ways to do it... one is to split halfway and have a strong true route after playing through the others, and the other is to have all paths split off relatively early (relatively speaking) in the game.  Generally speaking, most VNs with multiple paths that are truly great follow one of these two ways of going at it.  Exceptions to the rule are just that, exceptions.  Generally speaking, VNs that split late in the game are either charage light on story or games with a good story and too many heroines where they chose to basically just tack on after-stories or a very short romantic side-trip for each of the heroines.  Either way, you don't get a really good story out of a VN that splits off too late in most cases.

Edit: To clarify, the act of splitting random-feeling heroine ends at the end or after the end of the story feels really, really forced.  A prime example of this is 11eyes, where all the paths split off at the very end of the game.  This led to 'endings' that felt pointless, pale, and generally weird. 

[Jade]

Depends on the VN really but Early branching plot is more of my kind of thing 

Especially in heavy plot VN, too long of a common route would only mean crammed story in the later ends 

[Mugi]

tfw I actually love the Grisaia common route

More on topic though, I don't really care as long as it's enjoyable to read.