For those that operate simplex, a 1/4 wave really reduces range.
Sure, maybe, but it depends.
I'm in coastal/central California. There isn't a place I can go in this state and not see hills or mountains on the horizon, or Pacific Ocean. I've never had an issue reaching who I need to talk to with a 1/4 wave. While VHF will sometimes get a bit beyond the horizon, it is mostly a line of site thing. If your signal gets there, it works. Adding additional gain can help on reception, especially when talking to someone on a portable, in a building, or with a crappy antenna.
Higher gain antennas can be a benefit at times, but there are some trade off's. Longer antennas are not always a good choice, especially on taller vehicles. At highway speeds (or greater) longer antennas will flex back and reduce performance.
After many years of switching back and forth between a Larsen NMO-150 (5/8'ths wave) and a 1/4 wave, I finally settled on the shorter antenna. It fit my needs well. It's short enough on a full size pickup to not get in the way too much. On my wife's Ford Escape, it still fits in the garage.
On the flip side, I have a Polaris Ranger UTV. VHF mobile mounted in there. Since a good ground plane is hard to achieve on a roll cage, I went with a 1/2 wave whip. It's actually working very well. With a spring at the base it's flexible enough to take tree branch strikes, which it's done several times at speed. In fact, the end of the whip has a bend in it about 3 inches from the end.
Individual results may vary, and your specific location plays into that a lot. I know out in the central US, on the plains, it's common to see public safety using higher gain antennas. Out here, it's nearly unheard of, 1/4 waves will hit the repeaters just fine.
In the OP's specific case, he's considering a dual band. A 1/4 VHF will work quite well on 70 centimeters. A 5/8th's VHF won't. A 5/8th's VHF will work well on the 6 meter band, though.
The other big benefit to a 1/4 wave antenna is that they are very broad banded. I use my VHF radio for both work and amateur use. I've got work frequencies in the radio that stretch up near 159MHz. The amateur stuff, down to 144. On vehicles that belong to agencies that might need to interoperate with federal agencies, especially forest fire or interoperability with federal law enforcement, the frequencies can easily spread up to nearly 170MHz. It's difficult to get a 150-170MHz range out of a 5/8th's wave antenna without some compromise near the edges. On a 1/4 wave, it's not an issue.
I've put 1/4 wave antennas (permanent mount, center of vehicle roof) on an analyzer and it'll show a less than 1.7:1 SWR from 144 to 174MHz. 5/8'ths roll off a whole lot faster.
Not a big deal for amateurs, especially when only trying to cover 4MHz of the VHF band. Big deal for public safety, though. But, yeah, the OP isn't public safety, so not really relevant.