Yes and no in my opinion. The pole gaffs mounted higher up seem to work better on a thicker bark/larger stems and keep your feet a little farther from the tree. I have some kleins with pole gaffs which are similar to the buckinghams in how they are mounted. They are great on beeches but when you get to thicker bark they seem far too short and my feet actually hit the tree before the gaffs, same if I am on a larger stem. The geckos and Bashlins have the pole gaff mounted higher up and they were much better for trees with thicker bark and larger stems.
On small diameter stuff like canopy work the lower mounted gaffs work nice but when I got to the actual trunk I would kick out a lot. I measured the gaffs thinking the kleins were much shorter but they are just a whisker smaller not enough to cause the issue imo. For a good all around spike for most of our trees around here I prefer the higher up mounted pole gaffs. They let me use pole gaffs for the majority of the trees here roughly 90% of them, I couldn't comfortably do half of those with the lower mounted gaffs without really watching and paying attention to my spike placement.
If I had to pick just one pair of SHORT spikes I would go with the higher up ones. I still can't get away with just pole gaffs here so I can't say I would pick them as my only set of spikes period. If you use a really narrow hiking boot like some of the salewas you may not have such and issue with your boot hitting the bark before the gaffs but my airstreams and Sportiva trangos were terrible.
