Honestly this depends on the conference, but if it's the kind of thing where it's a CV filler mill you won't learn anything from either the talk or reading the

Honestly this depends on the conference, but if it's the kind of thing where it's a CV filler mill you won't learn anything from either the talk or reading the paper. And then there are talks which are impressive because the authors did a lot of work - again you don't learn anything because the solution is obvious, just takes a lot of effort. In those cases I agree it's better to shmooze.