If you can appreciate it, in the Buddha's day there were no books, no tape recorders, no computers. They had to learn things by memory. They really had to learn and remember things. They couldn't just go write it down in a notebook, they couldn't buy the book at the end of the retreat. They had to learn it by memory. So in those days teachers often taught by stating things in groups to make things easier to remember. And then over and over they would drum in the same ten, the same seven, the same five over and over. In that way it was easier to remember the teachings.
By and large, they are just different faces of the same Dhamma. Think of a diamond. It's cut this way, that way, that way, this way. You turn it in different ways, it has several different cuts, several different facets, Yet, it's all the same diamond, even though it looks differently when we turn it this way or that way. So basically, with all the different lists of things, they are talking about the same practice, but just focusing on it in a different way.
I don't believe that he, in a sense, favored one over the others, other than the fact that the Four Noble Truths are the biggest. The Four Noble Truths include everything else, so that is the most important. For example, in order to develop Right Intention you'll need to develop the Four Brahma Viharas. In Right Mindfulness you have the 7 Factors of Enlightenment etc. As to the other lists, a lot of it has to do with personality and what practice you need to help you walk the Noble Eight Fold path most effectively.
So when we look at these different lists we may get inspired in a different way due to our own personality. For all of our old students, we are forever encouraging them to look at the Ten Paramis. We are always pushing this because it is a strong part of our own practice.
Yet mindfulness and concentration are not in the Paramis, and many other lists include them. So why is it that we prefer the Ten Paramis even though they don't include mindfulness and concentration? Because the Paramis are really our development. Concentration and mindfulness are only tools to help us develop the Paramis. So for our own personality, our own way of how we have practiced, we focus strongly on the Ten Paramis. In that sense the various lists are a personality-based thing, and I don't think the Buddha actually favored one over the other except, of course, the Four Noble Truths.