A final ring has many advantages. It is interesting on how it came about. The ultimate socket design is to have a radial to each socket outlet on its own fuse at the Consumer Unit - the optimum solution of course. One fuse at the Consumer Unit for each socket.I take it you're allowed to use radials for sockets?
So why does anyone bother with rings, seems like extra hassle to me.
This means you will need a very large consumer unit and lots of fuses (one for each socket) in the consumer unit, and an amazing amount of cable.
BINGO A ring gives this by distributing the consumer unit around the house via a ring cable, having a fuse on each socket (the plug). The ring cable is a fused bus. This saves the vast expense of a plethora of radial cables back to the main panel and also a plethora of fuses at a very large consumer unit. This distribution saves on costs.
Simple and highly effective