I hope it goes well for all who try it, will be great to hear the pros and cons of container/baggie germination.
For me, it's been great to get quick feedback on the seed germination and seed viability. This would also be important to some of the folks here with limited exotic pepper seeds, I would think.
I've become a little bit ambivalent, but will stick with the baggies thru the end of this (my first) indoor growing season.
Partial sidebar: Using baggie / coffee filter, I just had a mini disaster as some grape tomato seeds decided to go full ballistic in 3 days. It was near 100% germ for 20 seeds with long roots in short order. It was difficult/impossible to get this mess into the container medium without a lot of root breakage. So while the method does germinate well, it is the transfer that can pose problems...
p.s. I immediately put some San Marzano tomato seeds into pots before they had a chance to do the same.
This year I have become a fan of cups (see the cups vs. bags thread). I've had less than stellar germination with seed starter and bottom heat, as well as seed starter and ambient heat, so I tried cups with a coffee filter at the bottom and ambient heat as an experiment. On March 1, 2011, I put some white hab seeds in a cup. I transferred the sprouted seeds to 4" pots today. That is crazy germination!
Its a great method which I have always used. However, on this forum this year, I read about the little cups with lids. If you think zip lock bags are fast, you should try the cups. It is even faster yet and you can see the seeds without taking out of zip lock and unrolling paper towel.