The difference between hitting delete and hitting Command-Opt-Delete is that with the Command-Option-Delete, the webpage is removed from the stack of sites you have traveled by clicking links. Hitting delete just move you down that stack and leaves the last web page in.

In other words, with Delete you can us the forward arrow to go back to the page you were last at, were with Command-Option-Delete, you can not go back to the last page you were at, because it has been removed.

From any page on Safari if you hit the delete button it returns you to the previous page on the same tab. So not only is there no need ever to use the “back button”, but you dont even have to use “command-opt-del”.

Just hit delete.