Not essential, at all. But, I like them on my sporting clays comp guns for the simple reason that I shoot competitive sporting with a pre-mount. Part of my routine is to mount the gun, focus my eyes quickly on the rib and check my mount by looking to see that the two beards are perfectly aligned laterally and are "stacked" vertically. Then my focus goes to where I expect to pick up the bird and call "Pull".
For hunting purposes they're basically useless, IMO. A think a nice set of ivory ones, in appropriate sizes, do look good on a graded S X S, tho'.
