layering objects

Being able to lock and/or hide individual objects or groups within one layer can be a time saver. It's not always necessary to move an object to another layer to protect it from accidentally being changed, particularly if it's a simple document with not many things in it. Layers are great at helping organize the elements in an Illustrator document. If I have a huge number of objects in a design I may not want them all on the same layer, even if I can lock/hide specific objects as if they seem like they're on their own "layer." The problem is the list of objects in the hierarchy can get too long to keep organized (especially if none of the elements are grouped). That's where layers become necessary. They make organizing all that stuff easier.

It may seem like a duplication of efforts, but not everyone uses Adobe Illustrator in the same way just as not everyone thinks and solves problems in the exact same way. For instance I don't like isolation mode in Illustrator and keep it disabled so I can do object alignment functions easier; but that's just my preference. There are other users who like having that feature. I'm not going to tell Adobe to take the isolation mode feature away from them.

I don't see the difference between the 2 methods. Maybe you can show some screenshots of the Layers panel?