I believe the 12&12 is important a bit into recovery, certainly after going thru the steps the first time, and having a solid program foundation rooted in the BB.
It's not an either/or thing, IMO. My current sponsor and I are using the 12 & 12 quite a bit- I'm 3.5 yr sober and it is a good time to deliberately add that to my program. I won't be using it with my sponsee now, for example, as she's just working on step 3 and that is certainly where her focus needs to be.