Yes it is better, because it lets you refresh your batteries and revive old ones. This charger will fix your old batteries. Also NIMH batteries have memory effect, I do not care what anyone says they have it. Being able to discharge batteries before charging them up makes them last very long. If you don't do this every so often your batteries will develop memory effect where it remembers the last point it was charged and you will get shorter and shorter battery life out of them each time. If you discharge every once in a while your batteries are brought back up to full life. All of this is very easy to do on the charger and only takes a few presses of the buttons.
I have personally seen this effect with NIMH batteries and the Xbox 360 controller, the 360 controller especially likes fully discharged and then charged up batteries. What I do is take the batteries out when those annoying circle lights start flashing, then I put it on discharge, it will discharge the remaining amount in the batteries then charge them up to full. This ensures I get a full charge cycle each time I insert the batteries in my controller.
I also like that the display on the BC700 reads "Full" so you know exactly when your batteries are full, no lights that are sometimes half green or half red so you never know exactly what they are telling you.