The only problem with ForceRefTo that I know of is that it may make references persistent. But the big advantage of using a quest instead comes if you want to use Find matching reference to fill an alias, which is a lot more useful at finding nearby NPCs than the Papyrus 'Find' functions are.
Agreed! I use the alias conditions to find the current followers.
But new people need to keep in mind, Alias are filled when the quest start - so in my case, I restart the quest when I need to get the current followers. (Otherwise, and I will probably change to this in my next release, I would use a seperate quest that I stop/start when I need to get the current followers.)