My husband is the main applicant and works in IT as a software developer. We applied for NSW sponsorship and were amazed how quickly it came through (4 weeks) He got the sponsorship through his Oracle experience. This was just recently. We got notification of state sponsorship in early June.

We then changed the 175 application (applied for on 6th March) to a 176. Suddenly the whole application is moving along really quickly and we had a case officer within a couple of weeks with all documents 'met' and we did our medicals today.

It seems that the 176 is moving really fast. I would say if you are in a hurry then thats the one to go for. We were pretty sure that we wanted to go to Sydney as thats where our friends are so state sponsorship wouldnt be a huge problem (unless we cant get jobs when we go there of course!) And its only for 2 years and not the full 4 years. If you are not in any major rush and want lots of flexibility as to where you go I think I'd stay with the 175 as for occupations on the CSL they seem to take only a bit longer!