I would say I prefer the latter. When I look at the load average, I don't really care what exactly the number means as long as it goes up when the system is mor

I would say I prefer the latter. When I look at the load average, I don't really care what exactly the number means as long as it goes up when the system is more heavily loaded in a way that reasonably correlates with the magnitude of increase in load. Over time you know what is a "normal" value, so checking the load average is a nice quick health check. There are many other better defined metrics to look at when there's actually a problem. If there is a problem, even a well-defined load average is too coarse a metric to give particularly meaningful insights.