Originally Posted by AndreyT

Nobody says anything about "needing tape to hold the shifter in place".

All I'm saying is that once you clamped a road shifter in its intended position and then finished wrapping the bars with the tape, it is too late to relocate the shifter. The tape will not let you move it too much from the original location. The amount of wiggle you will get (after loosening the clamp) usually depends on the properties of the tape, i.e. how sticky and/or stretchable it is. But in general case, in order to do major position adjustments on road shifters one will typically have to re-wrap the bars.