Hi Cougar, thanks for your input.
I'm of the school of thinking "2 RUU's are better than 1"
Sometimes an RUU may fail, be bloated with crap or could be quite old for a branded device. Having a goldcard allows use of unbranded RUU's which could be better than an older or dodgy branded RUU.
An older RUU may be a lower android version than what is on the phone you want to recover and will fail for this reason as the version must be the same or higher.
Although its not really any use from a warranty perspective, from a "getting it working" perspective, its best to have as many options as possible.