IF you can get all of your food into one of these, then they would be a good way to go.  That's a big IF, though - the larger sizes run about 700 cu in.  I use a 2700 cu in pack for my food for solo trips, and the main pack is stuffed full when I'm packing for 11 or 12 days - no way I could use just one Bear Vault or whatever - I'd need 2 or 3, and that gets really heavy and expensive.  A typical day's worth of food for me is about a half to 2/3 rds of a breadbag (I put each day's food into a breadbag - organized that way so I don't have to hunt for anything) - so visualize a volume that is 10 or 12 times that.  I've always wondered how much food you could stuff into one of those bear cannisters - to maximize the use of minimum space, you'd have to have everything "loose", as opposed to organizing by day, or by meal type.

If you do use one of these bear vault types, you don't need to hang it, or really hide it - just put it somewhere where a critter can't roll it away or knock it into the lake.

Maybe if bears were more of a problem for me, I might consider a bear vault, but I've never had any critter of any kind get into my hung pack - so "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" - I'll stick with what has always worked for me.  I do the same if I'm backpacking, i.e. just hang a food bag.