Are patch panels essential to a home network closet?
Short answer, you definitely want the patch panel, especially if you ran shielded cable.  (If you did not run shielded cable, you probably don't want a shielded patch panel.)  

Male terminations are less reliable than punchdown connections.  They tend to create marginal / intermittent failures in many cases, which can be particularly hard to track down.  To make matters worse, they often work for a while, then fail after the cable has been tugged / flexed / inserted / removed a few times.  

If you ran shielded cable, the patch panel should be grounded to ground the shield.  You could try to ground the shileds of the modular plug terminated cables but it will be a mess.  

Honestly nobody that does much datacom installation would suggest mod plugs over a patch panel.