Sometimes it can also be used as a workaround - if some operation is having some difficulty handling a particular surface calculation shrinking it can sometimes change it enough to happen to avoid the particular problem.

That doesn't necessarily mean that it's always _better_ to do a shrink - it's just that it can possibly change things enough to make calculations behave slightly differently, sometimes maybe avoiding a problem sometimes maybe running into some other problem.

But if something is not behaving well, it can be worth a shot to try it to see if that particular thing then behaves better.

- Michael