Janet, since I mainly cut ornaments at this point of my life, they are fragile and a zero clearance helps with breakage and give more stability to the wood. The holes in many scroll saws are in my opinion are too big and with what little experience I have had, breaks many fragile areas.
I have also learned to put back the piece of waste that has been cut out, tape it back in place (like a puzzle) and it also adds stability to those really narrow areas of the wood.
I hope you can understand this explanation.
