Point-blanking in Gradius Advance/Galaxies

[Obiwanshinobi]

I suppose autofire works like that in some other shmups, but does it in other Gradius games?
The closer you are to the target, the faster the rate, thus point-blanking is the way to dispose of damage-soakers quickly. Not sure whether it's faster the closer you are to the screen's right edge too, or the game just detects off-screen collisions.
Since I haven't played home versions of Gradius games all that much (and MAME autofire is obviously different), I hope you can tell me if this kind of point-blanking is a unique quality of Advance/Galaxies.

[trap15]

Most STG do this. It keeps a running counter on how many shots the player has fired that are still 'alive', and it refuses to shoot more until the counter isn't maxed (Gradius series typically has this count at 2). Shots stop being alive when they hit an enemy or go off-screen. So being closer lets you shoot more often and deal more damage. Definitely not Gradius Advanced/Galaxies specific.

[Mortificator]

Another consequence is that Double slows how fast you shoot, since it causes your ship to fire two shots at once. Options don't, though, since they each have their own counter.

I think the live bullet count was the norm in older shooting games, but became less common with time. Of course, Gradius is more tied to tradition than any other shooter series, and so never abandoned it.

This system can be irritating sometimes, but I like how it rewards accuracy with a higher rate of fire.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I don't recall V being like that. Advance reminds me of blue laser in Raiden III (where point-blanking makes that much difference).
Speaking of which, does the jewel thing in all Raiden games work like in III (where firing point-blank at jewel is the way to go)?