ORIGINAL: darock
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A flight box with long cords for the starter and igniters is actually a safety problem. Both cords come from the one location, and you need to route one cord around the back of the engine and the other cord around the front. And once the engine is started you have to get both cords out of the way of the spinning prop. Since they're both coming from one place, one of them at least is going to have to "go around" that spinning prop. It's way safer to have NO cords at all. Much safer. A bunch safer.
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The convenience is really appreciated when an engine dies on taxi out. Or dies on the runway. When only a few guys are flying at our field we don't have much problem with making one try at restarting a plane on the runway. If they don't crank on the first try, we carry 'em off of course, but they usually do crank. Most times the plane has tripped up because of our lousy grass coverage and if the prop hasn't been chipped the engine will start instantly.
The batteries for the self-contained starters are much lighter than a flightbox battery. And no more expensive.
I have to disagree with the "go around" bit. If you are using a starter, as soon as you disengage the starter, its off to the side, or already behind the propeller, depending on where you set it down. If you bring the plug wire up the fuse and over the wing, I don't see how you could get a wire into the prop without being extremely careless, which one should never be around a running engine to begin with.
As for the carry out to the field to attempt a quick restart, most newer panels have a plug blank that charges your glowplug driver, grab it and a chicken stick for your first crank on the runway bit. Or, if you have one of the flight boxes with a seperating starting section, carry that out, it won't weigh much more than a starter with a builtin battery.
Maybe its just me, but I find glow drivers seem to not heat a plug as well as a panel, and over the course of a day spent tuning and playing, don't hold a charge well at all, panels such as the Hobbico Accu-Glo MKII solve both these problems . Also, its one less battery charger that I need to find a spot to plug in....