[cyberax]

> Maybe the end-user takes interest in mixing/production for which they then have the higher version allowing them to work with without the faff of having to obtain the better quality works.

16-bit is enough for mixing. 24-bit (or 32-bit floats, even better) are useful _within_ the mixing pipeline, so you don't need to care if one of the steps results in clipping as long as the final result is within the bounds.