I'm curious to know what the advantages or disadvantages are to having an anchor recess on either the port, starboard or both sides of the bow vs. having an anchor roller/pulpit setup? I do realize that having an anchor recess on a smaller vessel may not be physically possible so my question is referring to a boat large enough to accommodate it. Is it more of an aesthetics issue or is there some practicality involved for favoring one over the other?
Below is an example of a vessel with an anchor recess... (actually it has two, one port and one starboard)
And here is the anchor roller/pulpit setup...