That can definitely be a downside of a traditional publisher. It's even more the case when you're not really trying to make money with a book but are using it as a more reputational thing.
Yes. I had previously published an ebook through leanpub and wanted the traditional publisher experience. The jury's still out, but it definitely has downsides.
The biggest win for me is that, rightly or wrongly, a fair number of people have a higher opinion of books that come through a traditional publisher. A publisher also provides editing services and so forth but, in my experience, they're pretty lightweight. I'm actually doing a new edition of one of my books right now and I'm finding more copyedit misses than should be the case.
You may well make more money depending upon the sales. But, to be honest, what I make off the book is so trivial compared to what I make indirectly by having written the book that it doesn't really matter to me.
Deadlines are both a blessing and a curse--especially for the original book. On the one hand, they probably forced me to go heads down when I might have been inclined to work on other things. On the other hand, you sometimes have to do those other things too.
