What is a flash flipper??
IMO, there is a very good answer for using the flash bracket, just no one ever says it.
This picture does show it..
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Event photographers and wedding photographers consider the bracket to be essential.
That involves taking many quick pictures of lots of guests, invariably all standing, with the goal of hopefully selling a few of the pictures. So the camera is rotated up on end into portrait orientation, for the standing subject. This puts the hot shoe flash on the left side of the camera, specifically, on the left side of the lens. If there is a wall behind the subject, this angle makes a very objectionable dark shadow on the right side of the subject. (see the picture sample). That probably won't sell.
The only purpose of the bracket is to rotate the flash back to be
directly above the lens. It still makes the shadow, but now the better angle keeps the shadow hidden behind and below the subject (see the sample picture).
The point is to
keep the flash directly above the lens, regardless of camera orientation.
This
puts the shadow directly behind the subject, out of sight in the picture.
It does not make the lighting better, softer, or more flattering, but it does hide this shadow.
There are several types of brackets (how they mechanically rotate), but all have the one purpose to
keep the flash directly above the lens. Any way you can get the flash directly above the lens will work.
If this is the type of pictures you take, and if you hope to sell them, better get a bracket.
Otherwise, learn to avoid the wall behind the subject. Or keep the camera horizontal with the flash above the lens, and then crop it vertical. Or a background light can cover it. And there are other better ways, a close umbrella diffuses it to be invisible on a background just a few feet back.
Here is a try I did recently... it was a quickie, and not my usual more elaborate setup. It was not the main light, but I was just using a hot shoe flash on the camera for fill (camera rotated up on end, flash was at the side).
And even fill 1.5 stops down was making a terrible shadow on a wall about 15 feet back. So quick solution was to just put a flash bracket on the camera, to hold this flash directly above the lens, and it was still a quickie picture, but no background shadow.