I for one find FTP to be a faster protocol over a good connection- this is usually due to server setup because their ftp daemon is set up to serve small numbers of large files, while http is set up to serve large numbers of small files. Maybe that is all placebo effect, but I seem to notice it.
http://cactuswax.net/blog/just-say-no-to-ftp/ ftp is generally a faster protocol, due to the fact that for each ftp data request, there is less overhead (no http headers, etc). ftp itself is a horrible protocol though. Very poorly behaved (a pain to allow through edge network filters, harder to proxy, etc) when compared to http. there really isn't much reason to use ftp these days. I believe that the only reason it is still used, has to do with applications that you can use with ftp... Such as: - The implementation of upload 'tokens' that are often used in the gaming and underground filesharing scene - The granularity of permissions available (directory/user level). just my opinion, but I am a biased network monkey.