Agree. Being sleep deprived is not a good long-term strategy. I can wake up early if I wanted to but I need to go to bed way earlier too, which historically hasn't fit well with my lifestyle.
The only real advantage I see to shifting your day earlier is that there's generally less distractions or unexpected demands on your time in the early morning because, well, no one else is awake.
I prefer to work on side-pursuits in the evenings but I do find that the time gets easily hijacked by other stuff like social/family obligations, etc. IMO it's probably easier protect your productive time by saying "sorry I have to go to bed" than "sorry I gotta go work on my Scheme interpreter".