Subds and polysmooth both are more prdictable with quads yes. Because of the bidirectional nature of it. Alo it less data on you screen true enough.
That is to say that ona quad you se the direction of the smooth on your modell and can think of the edge line a s apropanagating isoparam, but on a tri you dont necceserily understand whare it turns you. This leads to quad surfaces usualy being more smooth while tri surfs tend to get choppy because you dont understand the effect of the tri to the final surface well enough.
Also a pentacle is easier to undertsand than a tri too in many cases. Because a pentacle tehds to split towards its center much like a quad only it has 5 directionns to go isntead of 4