Barbell compounds are not essential to any program

It would be foolish to say that they don't work for building muscle and strength. They are obviously staples for many and there is nothing wrong with incorporating them in your program or even having them be the entirety of it.

But you really don't need them at all, especially if you are training for strictly hypertrophy.

Machines provide greater stability and standardized form, with meta analyses showing that there is little no difference between dumbbells, barbells, and machines for hypertrophy. So why not use the one that takes stabilization out of the equation and allows you to train closer to absolute failure?

This is not a write off of compounds as a whole for the record. The Smith Machine is just as good as barbells and better if you just want to look bigger, and anyone telling you otherwise will usually resort to appeals to authority and tradition. Nobody gets complimented for their stabilizer muscles.