Ask HN: Are there benefits to registering domains directly with the country?

Are there benefits to registering domain names with country TLDs (e.g. US, EC, DE, UK) directly with the national registrar? For example, Nominet for .UK, or NIC.EC for .EC.

Does registering directly with the national registrar confer better privacy, security, price, etc, than registering via a private registrar such as GoDaddy?