I suppose if you&#x27;ve already memorized the arcane syntax of base R&#x27;s plotting functions, along with a giant laundry list of highly customized visualizations available via libraries, then perhaps ggplot2 really is slower for exploratory plotting.  But for anyone coming to R fresh, the expressiveness and coherence of ggplot2&#x27;s grammar absolutely blows away base R for fast exploratory graphics.<p>For working data scientists in industry, there is an extremely important middle ground between exploratory plots that only I will ever see, and publication quality plots.  The most important plots I make are those that I&#x27;ll share with a small audience within my company.  These need to be clear and aesthetically pleasing, but not polished to an extreme degree.  Again, ggplot2 excels in this regime.