I am considering the exact same thing... downshifting to a vanilla server, though I've done some solid bukkit setup and love all the plugins and mods. Same reason, less hassle when Mojang issues a major update, breaking a lot of bukkit plugins and mods. I too am not hosting a public server, only a whitelist one.
I'm still looking into it -- the pros and cons of going back to vanilla... which is how I found this discussion. What I'm trying now to learn is exactly what mods are available for vanilla server and what the implications are of switching back.
I wish Mojang would make some of the most popular features of bukkit *native* to Minecraft server.
