I have an international exynos model. I rooted via chainfire about 2 days after launch, reasons being I wanted full access to my SD card (kitkat placed so many restrictions on this, it was unworkable for me) and also just some little things such as any app in multiwindow, or removing bloatware/ads in youtube, browsing -- these weren't as important as the SD card fixes for me personally though.

I didn't root with a rom, I did do that with my note 3 (xnote), but on note 4 I just kept it stock with wanam xposed / various xposed modules. I was a medium to heavy user of my phone so syncing with google services, gps etc were things I used all day everyday. At first my battery life sucked! But over time it got better, rooted on stock I would get 18-20 hours standby with 6 hours standby consistently everyday with the various tweaks I applied.

This past week I have since gone back to stock NON root, and I must add a disclaimer, the main reason is because I now have a surface pro 2 so no longer need that kind of control over my note 4. With lollipop coming out, I feel the sd card restrictions will be a little less restricting also so the main reason I chose to root is actually not a problem anymore (hopefully).

I do notice that greenify still works on stock albiet you have to a lot of manual force closing, so i'm not even sure how much that helps tbh, and you still do have the option of multiwindowing some apps (that aren't system apps) with an app on the playstore.

At the moment I am getting around a day and half standby with 4-5 sometimes 6 hours SOT. I'm not going to lie, this isn't a fair comparison as now I don't use my phone as much for demanding tasks as I used to before, since I got my surface pro, but I still do use it consistently throughout the day. I have also set my email to manual sync, which drastically helped my battery and turning wifi off when not plugged into a charger also helped too (only recommend that if you don't have shitty cell coverage)

As for the camera fixes, I have seen various workarounds or hacks mentioned on the xda forums but never tried, I'm not to sure what you mean about the disadvantages as I have exynos version but I do know I am anticipating lollipop and what it unveils for camera raw, before I go diving into that deep pool of uncertainty though lol.

TLDR; I would say wait for lollipop, see what bugs come up and then decide to root or not. You could root now, but how that plays out with lollipop I'm not even sure. I haven't noticed a drastic enough battery difference stock vs rooted in my experienced with the tweaks I use and honestly the only thing I miss is full sd card write access which HOPEFULLY will be fixed in lollipop.