Exponentially faster? Only if your code isn't actually doing anything other than test exit conditions inside that loop, I'd think. The maintainability benefit, on the other hand, is gigantic, though I'd use Perl's last LABEL; construct (with a label on the outer loop) rather than a literal goto (I personally find this a much tidier mechanism, though I realize that they're fundamentally pretty much equivalent).

And not, of course, that I would disagree with the statement that both that article headline in particular (usually without the link) and "$foo considered harmful" in general are employed in many places where they probably shouldn't be—just wanted to throw in some minor quibbles on the specifics.