Hi Joe,
Much depends on my objectives. My first guns were planed, rasped, filed, then scraped in spots with broken glass, and then final sanded. They all came out with very smooth finishes. It did not take me very much time to figure out how to scrape effectively and efficiently, but then I had my dad teaching me. Today, I decide what my objective is for the final appearance and work accordingly. If I am using curly maple and want a classic textured scraped look, I don't use sandpaper, just rasps, files, and scrapers. I want a glassy smooth surface, I rasp, file, use sandpaper to 320 grit, and lightly scrape for the final finish. Scraping cuts the wood fiber whereas sandpaper often just mashes it down. You often have to whisker a stock more if just sanded rather than scraped when intending to use water-based stains. For scraping, I use rectangular and French curve scrapers, a carving knife, and my favorite chip carving skew chisel. That last tool has cutting edges on 3 sides of the skewed rectangular blade and it is ideal for scraping around details.
dave