The most trivial technique to publish a website is to simply copy your web application files to the production server and create a virtual directory there through xcopy command. With packaging it creates a self executable MSI which is very easy and convenient to deploy and install. This allows the end users to install a web application with ease. You could also include custom license needs, agreements, registry entries and other custom tasks such as installation folder etc for ease of the end users. The MSI can also be rolled out to many computers at once by the administrator which is a very big advantage.