Wizards and programs which allow you to design the website graphically (WSIWYG editor) are much faster. In addition Wizards may come free with several templates which will allow you to make a fairly nice looking website without having a lot of talent or design experience.
Writing the HTML directly gives you full control over the look and feel of your website, and there are things you can do by writing HTML that you cannot accomplish by using a Wizard (such as changing parts of the layout, putting 'scripts' and other addons onto your website). In addition, it is good to have the ability to code in HTML directly because it provides an entry point into developing more powerful websites (such as news websites that use PHP programs) that you might not otherwise be able to do using a Wizard/GUI.
