Return node instead of node properties. Good or Bad?

When you use PROFILE, you should be aware that it is dependent on whether the query was compiled first as well as the version of the database. A more detailed explanation can be found in this discussion.

Also it is worth asking whether you have an index set up on your nodes? This is an important part of tuning your Cypher query and can greatly reduce DB hits. You can read more about that here and here. But, in general, it is always a good idea in general to return the value of a property rather than the full node/relationships in order to improve performance (more detail here).