Most cars wont have an air pocket in the radiator, cars that run catch tank/recovery systems like the S13 can not have air in the system or it wont draw the fluid back into the radiator when it cools (because the air contracts easier than fluid) before I switched to the S13 radiator the origional 1200 radiator worked well with the 1" gap, S13 radiator also works mint, but with a 1" gap as well, with an air pocket the S13 radiator is fine, if you top it right up it just pushes 1" out into the coolant bottle

and then stays there,
Maybe the A- suffers from a tiny bit of localised boiling around the exhaust ports so it uses an air pocket as a pressure buffer to compress and decompress during heat cycles without needing to cycle water level.
One thing I dont like about the S13 radiator im using now is that the end tank volumes are not very good,