Merge Replication: Are multiple publications better than one big one?

We have merge replication set up in SQL Server 2000. One of our publications has 65 articles in it. This works fine but it is a hassle to modify anything (beyond adding a column via sp_repladdcolumn) because it takes quite a long time to regenerate the snapshot. I'd always accepted this as a necessary evil until I came across this quote in a forum discussing replication:

Do you have all of you tables publicated in one publication? If that's the case, you should reconsider your replication design.

So should we reconsider our replication design? What are the pros and cons of splitting our single publication into mul开发者_JS百科tiple publications with fewer articles?

I have no experience with SQL2000 replication and little experience with merge replication, but there's a setting for transactional publications called immediate_sync that controls whether all articles are generated when the snapshot is run or only articles that have uninitialized subscribers. That would be worth looking into.