The disadvantage of using pre-compiler commands is that some IDEs (Xcode specifically, perhaps they all do this) don't color disabled code any differently, so at a glance you can't tell that the code block won't run.
Before a commit I'll sweep through and delete the intermediate code blocks that I've commented out. If I use pre-compiler flags to comment out the code, it's easy to miss it in the sweep. Because of this I never use the pre-compiler flags for something I don't want to get committed.
I like remapping 'comment' to ctrl-Q and 'uncomment' to shift-ctrl-Q. Makes for really quick editing of code while using the mouse.
Emacs's is M-;.
Alternatively if you don't need to check in your comments then your IDE should have a "comment selection" option (CTRL K, C chord in VS)