Be careful looking at all the stuff available for the end of the barrel and thinking they are all "brakes." It's like assuming any AR is the same. It should be obvious they can be very different.
Case in point, a 6.8SPC 16" midlength used for hunting, or a 10.5" AR pistol - used for hunting. And yet both have the same muzzle device on them, and BRT Covert, which is a linear compensater. No side ports at all.
There are flash hiders, brakes, and linears. They do different things. The A2 basically reduces night time flash with some dust reduction. Brakes generally have side or upper ports to push the muzzle down and reduce recoil. Linears are almost always closed to direct gasses forward, and may even increase residual barrel pressure for a small amount of time to increase what is used cycling the action. There is little muzzle climb reduction with them and they may even increase recoil an incremental amount. With the 5.56 intermediate cartridge having recoil so low you can shoot it with the butt against your mouth ( and an AR pistol rest was actually marketed to do that) any further reduction of recoil is largely a competition effort. Those who use them are attempting to improve scores shooting multiple rounds at paper targets - and just as often use lightweight bolt carriers with specially tuned buffers, gas systems, and springs to control bolt movement. They are handling recoil by dealing with the action itself, not just the muzzle blast.
That puts the gun into a very tightly defined operating envelope - they are race guns, not plinkers or hunters. Change any one of the parts, including ammo, and recoil would be an issue again - as much as it is an issue at all.
The M16 was specifically adopted with 5.56 precisely because it did reduce recoil and the soldier not only benefitted but reacted by firing MORE ammo, exactly as intended. An M16 is a lot more accurate shooting double taps compared to .30 cal rifles and it's exactly one of the reasons it dominates in open competition against them. They are less affected by recoil in the faster shooting portions of competition and score higher.
The AR is inherently better at it than larger guns and in terms of combat effectiveness is already tuned to reduce recoil as is. Also goes to the amount of ammo the two different owners take to the range - AR shooters can blast away shooting hundreds of rounds, .30 cal shooters tend to limit it to dozens.
For the most part an AR doesn't need an expensive special muzzle device unless there is some special reason to prefer one. Some AR builders putting together a hunting rifle use linears because they may like having a reduction of sound at the unprotected ear for the one or two shots in the field that might occur. High speed second shot followup is a lot more difficult on a non stationary target and muzzle control or recoil reduction nearly useless because of it. Same as a standard GI gun.
There are a lot of tests out there on devices but the major consideration is that if there are ports on the side then that device can and will have a higher noise rating at the ear than one that doesn't. It's turning the blast sideways and some even direct it back toward the shooter. I've noticed on a 10.5" I get almost no feedback from shooters in the next lane about the noise using a linear, where normally many would expect the 50% higher gas pressure on muzzle exit to be painful even with hearing protection.
Sort them out with a discerning eye, if they give you a migraine during a days shooting you are getting physical feedback. Just because you can doesn't mean you should when it comes to blast affects from a firearm.