New hd , use time machine or start fresh?

Other than music and email and a few simple progs to install is it better to do it this way or let time machine do everything?
I feel it would run faster and better with out time machine doing the install cause I would lose alot of old junk that I no longer use.

Am I wrong?
what you guys do??

It depends:
You can restore from Time Machine and then remove whatever that "old junk" is yourself. Or use your OSX install disc to do a fresh install and then go back and reinstall whatever apps, music, photos, docs, etc. One might take longer than the other, depending on how much you need to install and how much you need to remove. Personally, I just used the T.M. method when I installed my new and improved HDD because it was running fast and still had plenty of storage. If you aren't noticing any slow downs or performance issues, I wouldn't worry too much about removing "old junk" (whatever that means).

Personally I like to start from fresh. Grab all you need from your home directory.

Any folders like "Applications" you could grab a file list as a text file with:
"ls > filelist.txt" (use this command in terminal using 'cd' to navigate to the said directory.

That way you can start from fresh, but still have an idea of those 'odd' applications that you downloaded used once, but might need to use again one day in the distant future

....but I can understand why some people might favour the time machine method ^^^

Either way, I guess