Big files. Time matters.
10 ft.
No ethernet cable?
Using laptop? Don't wanna power cable. Nor ethernet?
My "old" HP Envy 4t with an i5-3217u in it generally lasts 5-6hrs of light use...so, no, a lot of times I don't have it plugged in to power unless I am going to be gaming on it or a nice long 2+hr photoshop session or something. I don't happen to leave leave spare ethernet cables plugged in to my router, or in to LAN drops.
I probably WILL once I finish wiring in the one in my kid's playroom, but that is because the one drop is right behind the desk my son uses for his homework where the laptop normally lives (when he is using it, and sometimes my wife or I use the laptop there too). So I'll run an ethernet cable up through the wiring hole in the desk along with the laptops power cable.
Otherwise, no, it probably won't get plugged in. Generally at worst I am transfering only 2-3GiB of files...so 40-60 seconds compared to 18-25s isn't that big a deal and not worth the hassle. 4 seconds to possibly walk in to the next room and set the laptop down, and I can start a transfer before I even move my butt. Ethernet often means the 4 second walk, plus probably 5+ seconds to fish around for a cable, if it is already plugged in to the wall to in the end maybe save 15s...doesn't sound like a good ROI on the effort. If I have to find a cable, its probably 30-60 seconds to walk over to a draw, fish around for a cable, pull it out, plug it in to the wall and laptop.
When I am transfering a boat load of movies for a vacation or something, sure, I plug the sucker in so I can drop a 20-40GiB file transfer from 7-10 minutes down to only 3-4 minutes.
Which gets back to my, "looking forward to replacing my WDR3600 N600 with something that is AC1200". If I am upstairs with the laptop in my kitchen or kid's playroom, that means 20-25 minutes for a big transfer if I don't wire it, or 2-3 minutes for a more typical sized "big" transfer (new game, a single movie, pictures I've edited, etc.). Makes it sometimes worth it to wire it up...going to twice the wireless transfer speeds makes it not worthwhile to wire it generally.