We chartered a 46.3 in 2022, as well as a 45.3 a couple of years earlier both with bow thrusters. I found them to be indispensable in several situations.

One is, if there isn't a strong wind blowing, to simplify position keeping while the crew picks up and secures the pendant. When leaving the mooring, a quick burst is a good way to get the bow away from the release pendant to minimize any chance of the boat drifting over the pendant.

Second is when backing into a slip. I've done that both with and without a bow thruster and, perhaps I'm admitting to limited backing skills with a large mono,I found it much easier, matter of fact downright simple to back in with short bursts of power followed by a short burst of the thruster to counteract any propwalk.

There are limitations. I used them a lot on the last charters and never had a situation where the pendant was getting close enough, or deep enough, to get sucked into an intake. Can't say I ever investigated it, but I can't image an intake large enough to suck in a typical pendant. If you keep the bursts short and have good awareness of pendant location, this should not be a problem

Short bursts for sure. There was a case (backing into an east facing slip at Oil Nut Bay with 15-20 knots at about 30 degrees off the bow blowing me off the slip) that they can't counteract and my efforts to do so with the thruster tripped the breaker. We got into the slip (thanks to the dock hands using our dinghy as a tugboat to push the bow), let the thruster cool down, reset the breaker and all was fine.

As an aside, we absolutely loved the 46.3. First charter where we had a genset and A/C (14 charters all monos). Be sure to get a good briefing on the electronics. My son and I both have degress in computer science but it still took some time to figure it all out.