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Zip codes, zctas, and tiger/line are good enough for what most people need. Maybe you can find an edge by using something more granular...but I'm not sure what edge you'd be looking to get with geodata. Maybe for real estate trends and/or market analysis?

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I agree.

Reading their alternatives, it strikes me with "ZCTA's are the worst form of small area aggregation except for all others."

Its not a great geography to use but it is quite useful if you know it's limitations and inaccuracies when you get into it. Stuff like multipolygon entities, island-polys, etc aren't fun to resolve but can be accounted for.

Add on that ZCTA's will historically follow some sort of actual boundary(rivers/highways/etc) they can tell a story in a way Census tracts can't.

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