I wasn't suggesting otherwiseBoth situations are fine DH, and both will relieve the pressure and provide a circulation through the pump.
I suppose the reason most instructions only show the valve in the pipe shorting flow to return is that many installations will already have this pipe in place, with a gate valve to limit the flow, so it's a simple matter of replacing the gate valve with an ABV.
In any case, auto-adjusting pumps, such as the Grundfos Alpha should remove the need for an ABV.