A little tangent, if you don't mind:
Looking at full-wave rectifier circuits, it seems to me that the 2-diode full-wave rectifier is better than the bridge rectifier. It requires only half the parts and only gives one diode voltage drop instead of two.
So why is the bridge rectifier so much more popular? OK, because it doesn't require a center-tapped transformer.
But isn't that a trivial consideration? It costs pretty much nothing to bring out another tap from a transformer.