Well, they're not the same, Mark - they don't have the REL attribute, so browsers don't pick them up and do nice things like prefetching and menu/toolbar generation.

Look at the pic I attached for an example of how one browser presents them. The advantages are that it's consistently the same wording and same location (even across different sites) and it's always visible, even when you've scrolled some way down the page. And it is hardly any effort, after all.

One note - some browsers only make use of REL attributes in LINK elements (in the HEAD), not in A elements (in BODY), so don't rely on merely adding REL to the existing A links - best to add some LINKs as well.