After seeing many games where contestants let the offer button cause them to decline a generous 8 and/or 5 box offer they would probably take without the button in play only to either crash (Naz's game) or take a less generous offer for board once they press the button (Sarah today), one really has to question how beneficial it is to the players?

What do you think? Does the button really benefit the players or is it actually a clever tool designed to help the Banker?

It depends on how you use it, really. As long as you've got the button, the Banker has to treat you like you're only opening one box at a time (as if it was a 26-case game). Once you've used it, you're back to going 3 at a time, though initially only 1 or 2 depending on the specific timing. As for the potential of a crash, well... as long as you take the chance of a crash into account, I'd say that part would honestly be beneficial to you, given that in almost every situation you've got more values you'd like to see gone than values you wouldn't. But if you blind yourself to the chance of a crash (as one-box-at-a-time is all too good at letting you do), it can (and likely will) make you suffer. So... it's a mixed bag. You have to treat it with the respect it deserves, not as a get-out-of-jail-free card.