Static pages can offer you a lot of the features that the front_page module offers, but, it has a LOT more administration to do. For example, to implement these features with static pages, you'd have to:

1. Check whether the person is logged in.
2. All the blocks must be set not to display on that particular page.
3. The user must know some PHP to do #1 and also to do redirects as logic can't be used in HTML.
4. No way to disable the logo section of the theme for the page (e.g. a user might just want an enlarged version of his logo with a few bullets of text on the main page - no other themable objects), without using another module.

Front_page module makes creation of a different front page for your site very simple, and offers more choice than static pages. Static pages for customized front pages is too involved for new Drupal users (and of course lazy administrators...) and front_page module provides a completely functional alternative.