Shikantaza vs counting breath As we know, in soto-shu we don't count nor observe the breath during zazen.

I would like people who have a long experience with zazen meditation to explain if they consider that counting and observing the breath was helpful to progress in their meditation practice or not. Should a beginner start with counting breathing rather then go straight into shikantaza practice ?
My experience with "formal" zazen comes from meditating at a local Korean Zen meditation center, for about two years, twice a week, two hours each time. Plus some meditation at home.

In my experience, counting breaths is useful on those days when the mind is very distracted with mental chatter / inner gossip.

There seems to be a progression here: from counting by mentally saying the numbers, to counting on phalanges, to simply watching the breathing, to watching the mind, to just sitting.

For beginner, "just sitting" is an impossible feat. So rather than lying to oneself and pretending to "just sit" while instead indulging in thinking, one is advised to watch the mind ("don't go with thoughts, don't go against the thoughts"). If that still does not work, one should watch the inhales and exhales, in the hope to see the emotional disturbances that the thoughts come from, and let those go. If the mind is so disturbed that one can't even follow the breath, then counting breaths is used as last resort to tie up the discursive mind.