You may end up with a mix, for my cold water set-up I use soft weights because they are easier on the body. If I’m doing a beach dive with a 3 mil and the steel 72 I only need a few pounds for trim, unfortunetly the small soft weights find their way out of my OMS pockets so I need to use hard weights with that set-up.
As for soft weights taking long to dry, try not to let your dive gear ever dry out :)