... advantages of 'code' tags ...

The download option, yes, and also that something like  [^=:\s] renders without code tags as ^=:\s (a link, by default, to Super Search with useful results only by rare and happy accident). I think there are some other, lesser benefits, but I forget what they are just now; maybe see Writeup Formatting Tips and What shortcuts can I use for linking to other information? (Note, however, that  <code> ... </code> tags, annoyingly, render some UTF-8 characters as HTML entities. I rarely venture into Unicodeland, so this doesn't bother me much. :)