Is there anything explicitly wrong with using has\_and\_belongs\_to\_many associations in rails instead of has\_many :through? I'm aware of [these](http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2006/4/20/many-to-many-dance-off) [articles](http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2006/4/17/join-models-not-proxy-collections) [describing](http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2006/08/19/magic-join-model-creation) differences and work arounds, but they are from 2006. From things I've read on SO, it seems like people think that habtm is old and clunky, but what if a simple many to many join with no model necessary is what you're looking for?

Thoughts?