There's good news and there's bad news here.
The good news is that a card reader does seem to be faster, going by my experience with Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Sony cameras. The bad news is that 'faster', in this context, means 'a little less slow than treacle running off your spoon', as opposed to lightning quick.
I use card readers to reduce the need to keep lots of different cables around. (How can they call USB a 'standard' when there are five different plugs in use?)
I'd advise against any reader that doesn't enclose at least half of the length of the card. The CF connector has exposed, thin wire terminals that have to slot into the card socket. To avoid bending any, you really need a superstructure that guides the card squarely on to the plug. I have to say that the Jessops and similar multicard readers implement the CF socket very poorly in this respect and I'd avoid them for this reason.