A big difference for me that you don't mention is that I adjust the Free Nodelet by pasting the contents into my favorite editor (or other tool), changing anything in any way I like, and then pasting the results back into User Settings. So I can do a global search/replace easily or I can write a tiny snippet of Perl code to sort a list of links in the middle of my free nodelet by node ID and paste the now-sorted list back in. That is more than just being free to add anything I want to it.