Dish washer in rear hub assembly - is it needed anyway?

[GK5268]

On my Ruby, I have got sealed bearings all round, at the front, I retained the felt seal & washer, but at the rear, on both sides, the washer prevented the bearing from seating satisfactorily on the inner hub, it would pop out very easily, so I omitted both the felt seal & washer. My outer rear hubs were new and fitted onto new drive shafts. So, my experience, there is a better clamping of the bearing without the washer. It has been like this for over 3 years now and I had to take it all apart this summer as part of other work and I thought I would revert back to re-fitting the felt seal & washer, but it just did not fit as well, so back it went again without - perhaps the sealed bearings are slightly different???