I definitely prefer parchment to the silicone mat, for the browning reason, plus the cookies took longer to bake on the mat. Back when I used to bake thousands of cookies every Christmas time, there were a few softer cookies, that I didn't want the darker, crisper bottom on, and the mat would be better for those, but I usually baked crispy cookies, since they stored well.
One thing it is good for, some of which will even stick to parchment, are macaroons. These are notorious stickers, and in my old books they told us to bake them on brown paper, cool them on the paper, then soak the paper with water, and peel them off! (No, I never really did this!) They tend to stick to anything I tried, and I never really baked many of them, until I found a recipe of Maida Heatter (I think in her first chocolate book) -
Chocolate Chip Coconut Macaroons. The bottom browns (the toffee like flavor is one of the good things about it) but sticks to foil, parchment, Baker's Secret, and any greased pan. It's ok on the silicone mat, but hardly any browning. But something I found years ago, before the silicone mats, or
Nonstick Foil (more on this later), were teflon sheets, which these macaroons would not stick to! I only used them for these, and other macaroons, and a couple other "stickers", but they worked, and the things still browned, since the sheets were so thin.
Teflon baking mats by
pepperhead212, on Flickr
I found out, later on, that nonstick foil - the kind with one side coated with silicone - worked even better for these macaroons. I could bake 3 consecutive batches on the same sheet, before they would start sticking (wiping it clean in between probably removes some silicone). But then, it's been years since I made that many of those things! Not that I don't want to.