Regardless of what type of coffee people drink or how they drink it, what is the best way to understand the short and long term impacts of child labor on quality of life?
A researcher looking at working conditions alone, without considering whether the alternate is worse conditions on a rural farm or some form of schooling is a sloppy researcher. It is a sloppy researcher, too, who doesn't acknowledge that labor-intensive production is a source of wealth that aids economic convergence for poorer countries.
The perspective of children living in poverty informs a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of child labor and growth economics, but it is not the final word, nor is the child remotely likely to provide any better policy guidance than someone who has the training and tools for sophisticated analysis.
Is squeamishness and moral indignation a blunt tool? Much as children can be easily compelled to act against their own economic self interest, squeamishness can lead adults to act counter-productively in pursuit of their loftiest ideals. That doesn't mean that people should just throw up their hands in despair, or defer to the idea that whatever factors lead to current conditions must be ideal factors.
These aren't new topics, and there is no shortage of research and findings on when, why, or how different types of labor are a benefit or detriment to poor economies:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=economic+growth+%22child...