Occasional use of the hammer is okay. A hammer will also flatten soft points.
The collet can mar a bullet if it's crimped or glued in. I pulled a bunch of LC53 .30-06 armor piercing bullets that had the black tar. It put a ring on some of them but really not bad.
\I use the hammer type and ended up putting a small piece of foam in the bottom of it to keep it from damaging the soft points. Works great. I don't typically reuse the powder unless I'm pulling several rounds that use the same powder. I clean the inside first to insure that there are not other grains floating around or stuck to the foam.
If you're just needing to pull bullets occaisionally and have a drill, just chuck the bullet up in the drill and remove the die from your press and run the shell holder up and catch the case rim and back it out. Safe... and minimal damage to the projectile and presto.