I'm not sure if I'm the best person to respond to this question, but I'm not the biggest fan of using detailed facts in place of a biography. For me, biographies give me a chance to really flesh out my character in ways that I may not otherwise be able to portray right away when playing them. Of course, I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to feel like they're leaving out any little tidbit. I think that every little detail in a bio helps other readers get the same grasp on my character that I have.
Facts can be fun, though. If anything, they can definitely help give you a head start when writing a bio. They're not useless at all, and I can see where some people would prefer them, but they're just not my favorite way of detailing my characters.
My judgment may be a little biased, though. I don't exactly write short biographies or histories. For the longest time, I was convinced that they had to be pages upon pages long.