It looks like I would have to jump through hoops whereas x11 just works.

If you have to jump through hoops I probably wouldn’t bother. Most distros are shipping it by default so I would just wait until that happens.

Some benefits that I can think of off the top of my head:

• Top quality high and mixed resolution support.
• Tear free rendering and capturing.
• (Small) improved performance.
• Games are much better behaved. I can reliably window, maximize and full-screen them. They also never mess with the display resolution.
• Seems to have less windows (especially hover tool tips) just hanging around. I guess the compositor can close these at the right time under Wayland.
• Proper secure screen locking. (I think GNOME + GDM can do something safe on X but most display managers + lock screens can’t cooperate well enough to manage this.)

Honestly it is nothing major (except the mixed dpi stuff) but a nice step up. And if the X devs say that X is unmaintainable and this is going to lead to many improvements and be able to be maintained for the next age of displays on Linux I’m happy to make the switch now that it is the default and I am not aware of any problems for my workflow.