This. My Nikon D3s is covered with physical buttons and dials. I can change shutter speed, aperture and ISO all the while looking through the viewfinder. I've also set the function button, rather than the shutter release button, to trigger autofocus - meaning that I don't lose shots when the camera forces a refocus just when I want to take the picture (e.g. pre-focused wildlife shots where I set the focus to where an animal is going to be). With practice comes muscle memory: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

The menu UI is somewhat clunky, but does enable function discovery. There are no Nikon-specific swipe gestures to learn, for example.