I'm sort of split on it... Growing up, I learned to scale it, cut the head off, gut it and remove the dorsal and anal fins (using the above-mentioned skinning pliers. To cook them we simply would roll them in a mixture of flour and salt & pepper, then pan fry in butter.

Delicious, and the "potato chip" tails are great.

Nowadays, I don't care for the mess I get when I scale them, and I can fillet them a whole lot faster than scaling. When you've got anything over 10 fish to clean, faster is better, so, when it comes to all panfish (bream, perch, crappie), I fillet everything.