I'll be honest with you, even though I have knit probably a dozen socks with short row heels, I still don't really understand it. My personal favorite pattern is the heel that I encountered in Cookie A.'s Baudelaire sock pattern. This masterful heel turn creates something that looks and feels just like a flap heel, but you work it from the toe up, and it's incredibly quick to do. You also don't have to do a lot of counting, which is good for me. I have trouble counting to 7 reliably (apparently).
Sock knitters tend to have very strong opinions on sock heels. Before I discovered the joy of the Baudelaire heel (which I use on every sock pattern now - just whack that baby in there, it's fine) I was a flap girl. I learned a basic sock flap from one of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's early knitting books, and I used it all the time. It was relatively easy, and even though it required picking up stitches and doing a little bit of short rowing, it was simple to memorize and work, and it fit me well.
One issue with many short row heels is that they are too shallow, which causes the sock to bind over the heel. The Baudelaire heel solves this problem by creating a gusset. But if you want to learn more about this problem and how to solve it, this Knitty article has a ton of information (both pro and con) on both the flap and the short row heel.
One of the biggest benefits to the short row heel is that it works so well on toe-up socks. I have grown to love the toe-up sock, because otherwise I tend to cheat and make the leg too short, by pretending I think I won't have enough yarn to finish it. Toe-up socks keep my knitting honest!
Image courtesy Flickr/*meaghan*
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