(I)
I do agree the brownings have a great receive, especially if one knows how to increase the gain in the If sections. my Browning Eagle and Mark II can hear a gnat fart three counties away.
But staying true to the OP, the question is whether it can tell the gnat fart's take-off angle from three counties away?
I have my doubts.
(II)
On the serious side, here in the lower Florida Keys we are surrounded by water. That enables radio propagation to take some seriously interesting twists at times. It can also be your friend - like when it does you the courtesy of bouncing your radio waves endlessly.
We talk house to boat to a variety of locations in each and every direction. It just depends where we head out to on a given day. That means my need is for truly omni-directional coverage. Better gain is great, but not at the risk of a null that kills gain in a particular direction.
Years ago, several local hams down here helping me out strongly suggested that my particular (omni-directional) radio needs were best served simply sticking a 1/4 wave as high up as I could. We actually did a little experiment with my 1/2 wave base station antenna and found that it worked really well to the NE but was considerably weaker due west. The 1/4 wave's performance was more uniform.
I'm still tweaking, but the article that starts this thread sounds very similar to advice I got from others whose radio expertise I very much trust. An interesting read.