Brand guidelines often arrive with a dozen lockups: horizontal, stacked, reversed, with tagline, without tagline, small-use, favicon. Each is reasonable on its own. Together they guarantee inconsistency.
Two is usually enough
A primary lockup and a compact mark cover almost every real application. When a new use case appears, the question becomes which of the two fits — not which of the twelve.
Variants cost more than they save
Every variant has to be produced, stored, explained and policed. Fewer variants means fewer files, fewer mistakes, and a brand that looks like itself more often.