I'd prefer to draft. Like Seen said, only 8 or so people were around for the draft, and being around 16 now, a lot of people have CPU teams that they may not really care for.
As far as the draft being 10 hours or whatever, myself, I don't have a problem with that. Now, I don't know what all tools the franchise has or the options and such, but if we set it for Saturday or Sunday (a day with the highest success of people being home) I don't see why we couldn't start it late morning, pause for an hour or something for dinner (if that's possible) and then finish up afterwards. Or if we could split the draft up amongst several days.
Like I said, I'm not sure if some of the ideas I'm suggesting are possible, but if they are, it's worth looking into at least.
Edit: Also, not sure (thought I heard you could), but it is possible to draft through your computer and not the console, correct? Also, is it possible to rejoin the draft if you accidentally get kicked off for whatever reason?