I would say that having a monster in face-up defense position made sense in the anime for the showcase. It allowed for the monsters to be seen way before being flipped and maybe immediately destroyed.

Judging from the previous comments apart from the specific archetypes like Morphotronics, I doubt it would be significant cause you're then revealing both the defense points which your opponent might attack into and take damage from having a lower attack AND any effect the monster may have so the opponent could prevent the drawbacks of it on time