I do this mostly because I buy loafs of ciabatta or baguette, cut and freeze them.

Trying to get those odd/thick shapes after freezing into a slice toaster was challenging, and we already had a toaster oven so I never replaced my slice toaster when it died.

What's the difference between a pop up slice toaster (I assume that's what you're talking about) versus a toaster oven?

I grew up with the first kind, but now only use the second kind to reduce clutter on my countertop. I never detected a difference in the two methods, but I'm also not very observant!

Toaster oven should be a lot less efficient and slower because it's heating up a larger space, but the result should be the same.

I can melt cheese over bread or bagel in a toaster oven.

Yeah, that’s one thing I discovered when I stopped using a slice toaster. I can put a cold pat of butter on the bread about halfway through the toasting process, and avoid the trauma of trying to spread cold butter on the toast.

The hack is to turn the empty toaster on and lay the toast flat on top. Good way to reheat pizza w/o oven.

It might be a cultural thing but a slice toaster is way more of a set and forget operation, which I like... also, a toaster gets based used for one thing and a toaster oven is used for a lot of other foods, and I have to worry about cross contamination.

Oh that makes sense. I use mine 80% for toast and the remaining use is usually bread-adjacent things.

If I was also using it to heat up chicken tikka masala or something, then that would probably not be good.

Indeed, and you can toast odd-shaped "breads" that won't go down a toaster slot.