ESL vs ESP Flagged as ESL

[Vanguardascendant]

Is there any benefit to converting an ESP to an ESL compared to just flagging it as an ESL?

[Zorkaz]

You don't have to take care of two files I guess.

Also people with outdated NMM versions can use them

[HadToRegister]

Flagging an ESP as an ESL gives you an ESPfe, which doesn't take up a Plugin slot, AND can be sorted.
A straight ESL doesn't take up a plugin slot, but can't be sorted.

Vortex can turn ESPs, "light" with one click to get ESPfe.

[Vanguardascendant]

Gotcha. I still use NMM, the community version, and it lets me sort ESLs as well.

 

Seems to me though that an ESP flagged as ESL is the better way to go so long as you don't need to compact the form IDs.

[VIitS]

Changing the file extension to .esl is never the right way to go. It adds both the ESM and ESL flags (at launch, not to the plugin flags, so you can't remove one of them), and if your mod ever needs to have more new records than an ESL can safely hold, removing the .esl filename will break any existent patches (whereas a ESPfe can just have the flag removed and the patches won't be broken).