If you have one `short` argument to your function maybe. But if you have a `short[]` array, you probably do care about the memory layout of that array. You might need it to be compatible with some particular data format that you're trying to read/write. Same with a field of a struct, if that struct is used for parsing. A lot of C code does parsing like this.
It's almost as if they were not, in fact, intended for precise control of bitwidths in portable manner...
All in all, "it's very easy and straightforward to control the size and padding of a struct's fields in portable manner" is yet another C's imaginary advantage: it's not that straightforward or simple. The padding especially has always been a thorny issue.