Went to a rack in the late 70s and never looked back. As others have said, a rack is the ONLY way to get same exact setup at EVERY gig. Yes, I did the painting of the carpet for stand legs, marking positons and heights of all stand tubes, and whatnot, but it was still a never-ending battle to get a consistent setup every time.
Another benefit of a rack is that you can get rid of the unweildly clutter of all the stand legs on the floor, which subsequently gives you a much smaller footprint, which can be quite handy if you gig regularly, because sometimes you never know what kind of stage, or non-stage for that matter, you're going to get! I once had to be on a 6x6 platform raised 5 feet off the ground, and my 4.5' x 4.5' footprint made it no problem, aside from climbing up and down off that thing between sets!
Yet, another benefit is that you're unlimited in what you can put on a rack. You are literally limited only by your imagination Look not only at what is all on this rack, the riser this is sitting on is only 5x5:
Front View
From Behind
Day Rehearsal Before Night Concert - Mics not installed yet
Summer Show on the River - no second tier, looks big but still in a 5x5 footprint
Closer look with no second tier. Here you can see that in addition to 3 cymbals, I have two overhead mic booms AND a vocal mic boom all on the top tier. On, and the rack is great for holding props and costume pieces, too.
Here's a variation of the same rack in a different configuration. I actually like the one above best, because nothing blocks me from the audience. Problem is with night shows the cymbals cast a shadow from overhead stage lights (look again at the pic above and you can easily see why even though it's a day gig), and people have complained they can't see the drummer, which is important because at some of our "bigger" gigs part of our act is to wear props and interact with the audience with games, requiring people to see me. So, for this particular band, the two upper tiers have been removed, and the 4 cymbals are now "flown" off the uprights with only one straight arm each. In other words, I don't even need boom arms, which means less pieces to carry and eliminates any adjustments for cymbal setup. There's a 30 inch side wing to my left, to which is mounted an electric snare trigger, an oscillating fan on its own mount, a vocal mic stand, and even a music stand when I need it. Even with all that weight there is no need for a supporting upright, because a leg-less hi-hat stand is connected to it, which bears the weight. My right side has no wing at all; the ride simply flies off the upright. As with the config above, the snare basket is leg-less, too, as it is connected to a 30 inch bar coming low off my left upright, which allows unencumbered routing for the connecting rod to my slave pedal of the double bass pedal. And, if that's not enough, note there are two mic booms for overheard mics flying off each upright. The only things on the floor independent of the rack are the floor tom and the throne.
Look close - that riser is 5x5 and the setup doesn't even fill all of it
Small Club with Small Stage - Note how small the small footprint is
As you can see, with a rack the setup is exactly the same everytime, which makes setup faster. And, if you're creative you can mount just about anything you want, and believe it or not, there are actually less pieces to carry than a traditional setup.
One thing I would highly recommend is that you try NOT to buy the cheapest setup with the minimal pieces you can find. That might not make sense to you right now, but once you start buying clamps, you'll know why I said that. In fact, I have over $800 in my 3-tier setup in clamps alone! To be conservative, think of each tom and cymbal clamp as costing about $30. Some are more, some are less, but that's a safe average. I have 15 just on the 3 tiers alone. That does not include the 4 on the side wing and the 2 on the low wing. Nor does it include the the memory locks I have for most of the clamps, and you can see how that adds up. Of course, I've had 30 years to accumulate them, but if you buy combo packages, those clamps become dirt cheap. For example, I've seen deals on bars that come with clamps and memory locks, but buy them separately, and they're easily twice the money. So, I would suggest you also try to think ahead as far as you can so you know what combos to buy.