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Yeah dochappy, as has already been pointed out, there's no "hard and fast" rule here! 

 

Bottom line, different situations require different approaches. 

Only after some experience in all areas mentioned (simple to difficult situations) does one quickly figure out which tool works best.

Often times, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on hair "whispies", and I resort to the "extract tool". When I'm in a hurry and don't use a small enough brush and find that too much of my main image gets extracted, I clone it back in (from a duplicate copy) on a separate layer. (Setting up "guidelines" is necessary here). Cleaning up and even hand painting with various eraser/brush opacities is a critical part of this type of work too.

Then there are times that the magnetic lassoo or the magic eraser works just perfectly too...   It's just a question of examining the foreground/background and knowing what tool will do the job most effectively and efficiently, given time constraints and project value...