I'd agree that the context is important.

I prefer serif when reading blocks of text especially in hardcopy as the serif's do their job of helping the eye follow the line.

In other contexts a sans-serif just looks nicer.

When working at a hospital in the early 90's we did a survey for our documentation and most folk preferred 12pt sans-serif. Well until they had to read long documents when 10pt serif was more readable and used less paper.