Optimization via explicit JOINs

Greetings, I've been toying aroudn with postgres 7.1beta5's ability to control the planner via explicitely JOINing
tables.I then (just for giggles) compare the difference in the EXPLAIN results.
 
 I'm no super-mondo-DBA or anything, but in my two attempts so far, the numbers I get out of EXPLAIN have been about
1/2as small.
 
 Below are two EXPLAIN results, am I correct in reading that one is indeed "twice as fast" as the other? I say twice as
fastbecause the top-most cost in the first query is 58.62, but in the second one it's only 32.09. Am I reading this
correctly?

-- First EXPLAIN --
Sort  (cost=58.62..58.62 rows=14 width=60) ->  Nested Loop  (cost=0.00..58.35 rows=14)   ->  Nested Loop
(cost=0.00..29.99rows=14)     ->  Seq Scan on playlist p  (cost=0.00..1.61 rows=14)     ->  Index Scan using songs_pkey
onsongs s (cost=0.00..2.01 rows=1)   ->  Index Scan using artists_pkey on artists a (cost=0.00..2.01 rows=1)
 


-- Second EXPLAIN --
Sort  (cost=32.09..32.09 rows=1) ->  Nested Loop  (cost=0.00..32.08 rows=1)   ->  Nested Loop  (cost=0.00..30.06
rows=1)    ->  Seq Scan on playlist p  (cost=0.00..1.61 rows=14)     ->  Index Scan using songs_pkey on songs s
(cost=0.00..2.02rows=1)   ->  Index Scan using artists_pkey on artists a  (cost=0.00..2.01 rows=1)
 

-- Dave