Yeah, that's kind of my point. I mean you can still put panniers on a rack without the extra side bar, but usually they stick up too much to comfortably use the top as a flat surface AND put panniers on. For me I like to use both when I go grocery shopping because I tend to keep track of the weight my rack can handle and add up the weight of the items as I put them in the cart rather than thinking about the size so I often need as much room as possible and wish I'd gotten a rack with side bars to lower the panniers. I still might at some point, and the one you linked to is interesting.