Use Case of Roles vs. Taxonomy

Dear CODers: (clever, I know!)

Am working with latest version of COD from SANDcamp for next year's camp. In working with creating new sponsors, I noticed that sponsors are a taxonomy vs. a role. I've generally used roles in the past. Sponsors checkout and are role-assigned based on the product they purchase. Is there some new COD goodness based on assigning sponsors a taxonomy instead? Does role vs. taxonomy have other implications to be wary of downstream?

Also, I remember from the sprint that there is a specific order to content creation on new COD. Could someone please post the preferred order of the content types? I will post my documentation around this in return if it proves to be helpful.

Thanks much for coming to camp, the sprinters had a great time.