I seem to do a lot of background screens that stretch to 15" wide, so the 16" pallets stay on most of the time, and my squeegees are almost all 14" wide so that inch on each side is great for not pressing off the edge on the manual. If I had an auto though where I could have 13.5 inch wide squeegees and guarantee they were always 1/4" from each edge of the pallet, I could see 14" being ideal for a large majority of jobs.