Linked tunnels mean you don't have to keep wiring them through. But even without them, I would never have more than 10 cases (yes. I'm looking at you JGCode...lol) so it wouldn't be a big deal. I also don't generally hop over code. I wire through sub-vis as I like to only have only sub-vis in each case frame rather than raw code - much cleaner and gives you the opportunity to make them subroutines. Locals (and globals for that matter) I try to avoid since you cannot sequence them with error wires. If it doesn't matter about UI updating affecting performance, I prefer to use a property node (because of the error terminal). But that's nothing to do with state-machines
But then, I'm me. And that's a bad thing