The most advanced staplers I know of in use today are the circumferential staplers used by surgeons to anatomose sections of bowel together. Commonly used in anterior resections where the lower part of the colon is removed because of colon cancer, this nifty device comes in two parts. One bit goes to the remaining piece of colon after resection and is sewn in place, while the other bit goes in through the anus to the end of the remaining rectum. Then, the two bits are rejoined (a sharp bit pierces the sewn together bits of colon/rectum and it fits together with the other bit already in the proximal colon) and the device is closed tightly. Then, in one smooth motion, the stapler does a circumferential stapling of the two bits of GI tract and cuts out the intervening (doughnut shaped) bit of tissue in between the staples. A good seal is formed from the multiple, small, double or triple layered staples.
What's all this for? It saves more than half an hour's worth of the surgeon's time and has better results (in terms of operation morbidity and mortality) than the old method of sewing by hand.
Even discounting the above, surgeons have all sorts of great staplers. There are staplers for all sorts of surgical procedures. The simplest, and likely the most used ones are the "clips to skin" type where little metal staples are substituted for stitches on the skin, typically used when the wound is large, the operation has gone overtime and everyone involved just wants to finish up quickly and go home. Then there are the circumferential staplers that I've mentioned above and there are also linear staplers with a cutter in between, used for stapling shut a piece of bowel and cutting it in between, ensuring that no faecal material falls out during the process. Nifty. There are also vascular staplers which are basically clip appliers that are used to occlude arteries or veins.
All in the name of saving time and effort.