Should I use a WordPress page as a homepage?

I’ve made a few themes from _underscores up. Each time I make a theme I try and test different options for populating the sites home page. Various things I’ve done include;

– Create a theme options page with custom meta boxes for text and images that get called in the themes front-page.php file.
– Extend the built in wordpress customiser with text, textarea and image inputs that are then called in the themes front-page.php file.
– Create widget area’s in the front-page.php file that can then be filled with text ad images from the admin/appearance/widget section of wordpress.

One thing I haven’t tried is to create a wordpress page called home create a file called page-home.php then set it as the home page in the admin menu settings/reading. With this option if gives me the ability to create numerous custom fields and a page that isn’t in a different place to all other pages. Which is less confusing for my client. I can still then use widget areas if required.

I want more control over the home page. Above is the list of ways I’ve tried to achieve this so far.

My question goes out to experienced theme designers/developers and WordPress core contributors. What do you advise?