If the fastener is recessed at all, then you'd need this shoulder. I saw your other post on flex versus fixed and I will say I went down the same road as you are going down, and ultimately I haven't bought any ratcheting wrenches, not yet.
I'm of the belief that there are tools of necessity and tools of convenience. I still lack some tools of necessity. So I'm focused on those. Even if they are rarely needed, they are still needed when they are needed, like a tap and die set.
I've come to believe MOST ratcheting wrenches are more tools of convenience designed to speed up a job that you can already do with other tools.
I do think there might be some ratcheting wrenches that can do things your other tools can't do, but I'm not sure. It's hard to discuss that here because most GJ members are pro mechanics and time is money to them so they want to make a 10 second fastener removal take 5 seconds. Whereas I just want to have enough tools to make the fastener removal possible even if it takes 30 seconds or a minute.
So in that perspective, I'm actually thinking the most useful ratcheting wrench might be a flex head non-reversible that does not have this shoulder and is just flush. Because if you can fit one of these ratcheting wrenches with the extended shoulder on a fastener, then I think you can also fit a ratchet with a nano socket. You already have ratchets. And if you dont have nano sockets, it's a lot cheaper and will take up much less space to get a $60 set of Japanese Koken Nano Sockets in 8mm to 19mm than it is to get a Taiwan-made wrench set for $200+ that will take up much more space.
But if you can grab the 14mm ratcheting wrench, you might save 10 seconds over fumbling with a socket on the ratchet and then taking the socket off after. So as a pro mechanic, if you can save 10 seconds per fastener, you can go home an hour early every day. Or work an extra hour for more money.
I think that the flex non-reversible ratcheting wrenches are the only ones that might get you in places you can't get with a ratchet. I might be wrong, but that's my current thinking. And yes, you can get stuck with a non-reversible wrench on a fastener, so you have to think when you use it, but if you're only using it as a last resort when otherwise you'd be using a regular box end combination wrench, then you shouldn't be using it often anyway.
That's my current thoughts, as a home gamer, with limited car experience, who's never used ratcheting wrenches, so I might have no idea what I'm talking about.
