Yes, absolutely, show the distribution whenever you can. But consider production alerting purposes. For example, consider database user-lookup time. Use the 95

Yes, absolutely, show the distribution whenever you can. But consider production alerting purposes. For example, consider database user-lookup time. Use the 95th percentile, or even the maximum value to compare with an alert threshold. In many (most?) real-world cases system trouble shows up as a few lookup-time outliers. If you only look at averages, or even medians, you miss those outliers.