In a way I'm concerned about shock resistance. A thin brace with the fibers in the ideal alignment can be bent considerably more than one with runout. The runout piece will split sooner, with not much force needed, from my tests. The zero-runout brace has to be forced to the point of becoming rigid and only then it snaps with a loud "pop". Now, perhaps this is not of concern unless someone lands his butt on the bridge
however guitars are occasionally subjected to all sort of trauma. Bridge taps required by some classical pieces, or flamenco golpes, might be included here too? Also, extreme runout makes the wood a bit less stiff. The Torres type braces are just 3mm tall, and taper to nothing starting from behind the bridge, that means there is not much wood at all in an area prone to bulging. That's why I think it is wiser to choose the spruce carefully and eliminate as much runout as possible from near the glue line. I really feel it is structurally inferior.
Perhaps all this is just unimportant detail, but perhaps all the small detail added together makes for that better guitar.
Thanks, Wendy
. Make sure the bevel is nice and flat so you can use it upside down too. Recently I bought a flat bottom Herdim plane with a 9mm blade or so, it is pretty cool but I still like the chisel in most cases. I also paint some red pencil before I start, in order to keep the height intact. 