Long rectangular quads? Or neat squarish quads with tris? For curved meshes I've often noticed that in my desperation to avoid tris, I tend to extrude the mesh in a way which creates these long rectangular quads:



In this case at least, the mesh is all quads, however the edge flow causes loopcutting to be awkward in some places:



I tried creating the same mesh with more even topology, however I found tris unavoidable. Maybe it was because I was starting with the long-quad mesh, but I also found myself using the knife tool for everything..



This makes loopcuts less necessary and easier to place in most cases, though the occasional tri does get in the way.

An annoying thing about the tris are the poles, though they aren't too noticeable in this particular case.



Both techniques seems to have their advantages and their disadvantages:



Which is considered "better", if any? Are there any better workflows for creating even topology with as few tris as possible? Or is there some trick I'm missing altogether?

Blendfile
Topology is a weird thing. It can be done a few different ways, and there isn't always a right answer. However, a few rules to keep in mind while modeling:


Edge loops should be around defining features and edges. For example, if you have a hole in your mesh, there should be a loop around it. It makes the shape easier to change and makes creasing the mesh with more edge loops much simpler.
Try to keep a quad based mesh. If you are forced to use a triangle or n-gon, try to hide it away on a flat surface, or a hidden part of the mesh, where, when it messes with the subsurface modifier, the distortion will not be as noticeable. 
Try to keep quads even sized and square. Otherwise you'll have weird stretching issues.


So, to answer your question, you want an edge loop around the bottom with squarish quads inside:



It will be easy to change the shape of your mesh and it will work nicely with the subsurface modifier.