I haven't made one but fell in one love with a pictue and story of one in a book years ago. It was handmade out of silk scraps by a boy who got sick and was confined to bed for a year. The silk scraps were leftovers from dresses made for his female family members, I think. Someone cut the pieces for him, and he hand sewed the squares and filled them.
My understanding is that they are fairly simple to make. The top layer is cut larger than the bottom layer, and the excess on each side is made into a tuck. The one I loved had a centered tuck, with the excess folded over on each side of the tuck. The tuck itself was on the outside of the edge (ballooning out, rather than being tucked in). I have since seen pictures in which the tucks were taken differently -- sometimes just one fold in the center of an edge, with each fold facing in the same direction (so, for example, they all folded in the same direction going clockwise).
I don't think super thin batting would work for stuffing. Polyfill is very fluffy so it "puffs" the puff out. Thin batting would not fill in the puff. You could probably use old-fashioned cotton batting (100% cotton Blue Ribbon batting from Mountain Mist, for example) as long as you pull it apart and fluff it up as you go. Silk batting would be lovely too, I think, but it's more expensive; advantage would be it is very light in weight and warm, but breathes.
Once you have the top made, there is no batting. You just add a backing fabric and tack top to backing at regular intervals between the puffs.
If you are looking for warm and cozy, I would not make the puffs too puffy as I think that would add stiffness. Silk would be luxurious for the top, but then you would probably want flannel for the backing so it stays n place.
I honestly don't think these quilts are any faster to construct than traditional quilts (if the traditional quilts are tacked), but I still love the look of them.