After taking bong hits for pretty much an entire year, I refuse to smoke out of dry pieces anymore.... unless it's a blunt, cause those are just chill as shit.
I prefer the bong for one reason. Smoother, cooler hits. It's a process for me to take rips though... my piece (Buck Futter) has a carbon filter, tri-perc ash-catcher, then a halo perc inside the bong and ice catcher inside. THC isn't water soluble I thought, so the carbon filter takes out lots of the non-THC smoke, the perc's give the smoke more surface area to latch onto the water which filters out even more of the bad stuff, plus it cools the hit down, and then the ice makes it a nice cold smooth hit.
With dry pieces often times the hit is harsher and hotter, which irritates my throat after long ass smoke sessions. Plus with bowl's if ur a little too over-enthusiastic with your hit you'll cash it in your mouth, and no one likes the taste of ash.
Either way though you'll still get just as high off of one as you would the other, same bud, same THC, just different volumes hitting you at once. I don't care how big your lungs are, u can't take a .5g hit in one go on a bowl, but you can w/ a bong, which is why it can be more intense sometimes. But the smaller pieces conserve better and the bud'll last you longer.