Please don't kill me!

I have two statements that accomplish the same task and I'm trying to decide
which to use. One uses a sub-select, and the other just does a few more joins.
I expect that giving the SELECT statement's themseleves won't get me much help, so here is the output of the EXPLAIN
querythat I ran on both of them. I read
 
the FAQ on EXPLAIN a bit but I'm still confused.

So could somebody help me understand why it appears as though the first query
will run much faster (?) than the second?

--snip!--

Nested Loop  (cost=81.80..114.17 rows=33 width=68) InitPlan   ->  Seq Scan on l_portal_statuses  (cost=0.00..22.50
rows=10width=4) ->  Merge Join  (cost=81.80..86.63 rows=3 width=52)     ->  Merge Join  (cost=59.13..63.43 rows=33
width=44)        ->  Sort  (cost=22.67..22.67 rows=10 width=28)              ->  Seq Scan on contacts m
(cost=0.00..22.50rows=10 width=28)         ->  Sort  (cost=36.47..36.47 rows=333 width=16)              ->  Seq Scan on
buildingsb  (cost=0.00..22.50 rows=333 width=16)     ->  Sort  (cost=22.67..22.67 rows=10 width=8)         ->  Seq Scan
oncontracts c  (cost=0.00..22.50 rows=10 width=8) ->  Index Scan using executives_pkey on executives e
(cost=0.00..8.14rows=10 width=16)
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merge Join  (cost=174.38..247.30 rows=333 width=76) ->  Index Scan using executives_pkey on executives e
(cost=0.00..60.00rows=1000 width=16) ->  Sort  (cost=174.38..174.38 rows=33 width=60)     ->  Merge Join
(cost=167.58..173.53rows=33 width=60)         ->  Merge Join  (cost=59.13..63.43 rows=33 width=44)             ->  Sort
(cost=22.67..22.67 rows=10 width=28)                 ->  Seq Scan on contacts m  (cost=0.00..22.50 rows=10 width=28)
        ->  Sort  (cost=36.47..36.47 rows=333 width=16)                 ->  Seq Scan on buildings b  (cost=0.00..22.50
rows=333width=16)         ->  Sort  (cost=108.44..108.44 rows=100 width=16)             ->  Merge Join
(cost=92.50..105.12rows=100 width=16)                 ->  Sort  (cost=69.83..69.83 rows=1000 width=12)
  ->  Seq Scan on contracts c  (cost=0.00..20.00 rows=1000 width=12)                 ->  Sort  (cost=22.67..22.67
rows=10width=4)                     ->  Seq Scan on l_portal_statuses l (cost=0.00..22.50 rows=10 width=4)
 
--snip!--

Hopefully that's not too ugly.

TIA

-- Dave