OK, so this is a bit of an oddball thing to compare, but I built my commuting bike up with a 3 leading 3 trailing spoke pattern (as usual Sheldon has the answer if you don't know what I'm talking about
http://sheldonbrown.com/org/iro/584/pages/06.htm).
This is a bit of an oddball build, but very pretty to look at. There are various variants on it. Sheldon shows no spokes crossed, I've seen all the spokes crossed. I read that with all the spokes crossed it's difficult to true. I tried to build it with no spokes crossed, but found it impossible to keep true after I de-stressed it during the build process, so compromised by crossing one set of spokes in each group like this:
This wheel held up for two years of daily commuting through all weathers, until I finally wore the rim out.
I never really worried too much about it, but I did notice that the bike handled very differently when the tyre pressure was a bit soft compared to pumped up hard.
When I rebuilt the wheel I used the same hub, rim and spokes (cheapskate!) and found that there were rub marks where the spokes crossed from the 3 leading 3 trailing pattern. So I guess the wheel had a bit of lateral flex after all.
As a conventional 3 cross wheel the ride is really noticeably harsher. The 3 cross build is definitely stiffer.
So, my guess is that 3 leading 3 trailing builds are better suited to a rear wheel than a front wheel and that this pattern might take some of the sting out of a build on deep section rims.