The benefit of a hybrid system depends on the goal of an academic work. If the aim is to prove that the robotic system doesn't work, than a purely continuous systems is the way to go. Ordinary differential equations ensure that apart from simple obstacle avoidance the robot can't do complex tasks. Especially from the perspective of philosophical foundations of AI it is important to show, that robots are harmless and that science is not able to build such machines.
Why is somebody interested in building machines who doesn't work? Because this is equal to demotivate the audience. It is the best practice method to use the own influence to hold down technology. Instead of arguing on facts, the debate can be biased into a philosophical one about the limits of Artificial Intelligence.
If the aim is to develop advanced robotics, a hybrid control system is the way to go. With multi-modal-planning and agent architectures, It is possible to implement human-like behavior. From a technical point of view such, such a control system will work very efficient and is able to not only follow a light, but pick up objects, doing complex tasks and parse textual commands. The disadvantage is, that the education situation becomes complicated. Because there is no limit and students could become motivated to think ahead. They will develop systems which break up the curriculum of the teacher.