Dunno, I have several sets of spline ratcheting wrenches and they work just fine for me on 6 point fasteners, which is all I've ever used them on. This is just one of those GJ things that people here love to complain about, so they have something else to ***** about after screaming "get off my lawn" to the neighbor's kid
.
Depends what you work on and how rusty it is, as well as fastener quality.
I regularly use reverse on all my torque wrenches, people here say you don't need that for anything but left hand thread. And they forget about torque adapter reach-arounds but I forgive missing that situation. Torque hardware, reverse the torque wrench, then pull back to pop the socket off as it's stuck on the hardware. It partially rotates like it's going to round before fully applying the torque because the fastener is garbage. That's the same method spline seems use use and it frequently means the tools get stuck. Flex wrenches like these, Mountain, etc can be impossible to even get on a fastener because you can't push the floppy head over the corrosion. I'll get the wrench lined up and use a pry bar to push it over the head of the fastener if need be. There will be entire jobs I do where ever single piece of hardware needs to socket rocked back and forth, pushed off with a pry bar, hammered off, etc.
Earlier this week I replaced a wheel bearing on a jeep wrangler as part of doing an axle joint. Hub bolts are 13mm 12 point. I first use a 14mm to knock off the worst of the rust, just slip it on and wiggle it around for the big chunks, then hammer on a 13mm to push off the rest of the rust. Then I beat a 12mm on so I can apply more than 1/4 drive levels of force before it rounds. Then I make the flange on the wheel bearing hub glow orange in ~1 square inch area centered at the bolt threads. One I ended up needing to melt the corner of the hub off as there was no making any progress. These vehicles are annoying with 6 point sockets which is why the paint is always missing on the lift arms right next to the wheel, even the stupid lugs nuts get stuck.
Spline grabs better than 12pt IMO, but there's a cost associated with that. Everything ***** in some way. Flank drive xtra got pushed by snap on as a replacement for regular 6 point sockets yet they're unusable on a lot of hardware without a hammer to install them. 12 point is generally easier to wiggle onto something crusty than spline however the spline will be able to apply more force. But the set is ~1/3 the cost of the 12 point option from snap on, so I keep my spline. It's just an option with pluses and minuses like anything else. I used matco non-slip impacts which are a 6 point spline design for many years, and those stuck to everything. But you basically never rounded anything that wasn't rotten into a cone.
I may pick these up for the reversing lever versus my Mountain wrenches. I preferred the Steelman version but I kept breaking the reverse levers so I got the Mountain. In tight areas pulling off an AC compressor or similar hitting the button on the side is very annoying. Snap on is just hideous with their $800+ price tag. AC season is starting, we'll see how much the side switch pisses me off this year.
capritools.com
They seem to have nice chrome and large, deep size marking in the online photos. 
That was a new record for me 