Question: using Message's default tokens, or raw field values

I'm curious about whether the messages are more performant (when viewing large large numbers of them via Views) using the tokenized strings or setting up extra fields to store information about the nodes, the actions (e.g. a field whose choices are "updated", "created", "commented on")?

I have always preferred to store my data in pieces, i.e. in separate fields, but does anyone know what has better performance?