wp set object terms vs wp set post terms

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Examining the following sample code snippet from the WP codex,

$post = array(
  'ID' => [ <post id> ] //Are you updating an existing post?
  'post_author' => [ <user ID> ] //The user ID number of the author.
  'post_category' => [ array(<category id>, <...>) ] //Add some categories.
  'post_content' => [ <the text of the post> ] //The full text of the post.
  'post_date' => [ Y-m-d H:i:s ] //The time post was made.
  'post_title' => [ <the title> ] //The title of your post.
  'post_type' => 'post'
  'tags_input' => [ '<tag>, <tag>, <...>' ] //For tags.
  'tax_input' => [ array( 'taxonomy_name' => array( 'term', 'term2', 'term3' ) ) 
);

I see that only the categories take their input by IDs.

For some reason, ( which I’d like to know the history behind it as to why), tags and custom taxonomies takes their input differently.

Here, we are looking at 3 different ways to set the taxonomy terms;

For cats, use

'post_category' => [ array(<category id>, <...>) ]

for tags, use, 

'tags_input' => [ '<tag>, <tag>, <...>' ]

and finally for CT’s, use 

'tax_input' => [ array( 'taxonomy_name' => array( 'term', 'term2', 'term3' ) )

With this 3 different ways, I think things are getting complicated. It’s not that it cannot be done but programmatically, it seems more complicated than it should be.

I thought why don’t I just use the Uncategorized Cat ID of 1 here ( within the post wp_insert_post ) just to get the post in, and then take care of the proper cats , tags and custom taxonomies, all using the same function call.

With that in mind, I have 2 choices;
wp set object terms and wp set post terms

I’d like to know if one is better than the other and why we have two different but very similar ( almost like a subset vs superset ) type situation here.

Which one is recommended to use when managing thousands of posts, and cats, tags programmatically – especially in a migration phase?

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Right there is no big difference between them, actually wp_set_post_terms() uses wp_set_object_terms() but does few extra check for you. That’s also noted on wp_set_object_terms() Codex page:

Perhaps the wp_set_post_terms() is a more useful function, since it
checks the values​​, converting taxonomies separated by commas and
validating hierarchical terms in integers.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_set_object_terms#Notes

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