Lunges done walking forward have a "braking" action to them that is favored by a lot of coaches and athletes involved in jumping events. Its somewhat similar to the plant and whats happening in the loading phase of the jump, that gives them the nod over other variants of lunging, when implemented for that purpose. Reverse lunges are a good option in that they are easier to perform with good balance and consistent depth/ stride length.
Any of those exercises, including bss, can be manipulated to emphasize different areas, completely dependent on the stride length and length of the split. Its mainly dependent on what your weakness is and what you want to emphasize, all can be useful at times. imo, a multi directional lunge, stepping forward, backward, and to the side is hard to beat as an assistance exercise to bring up a unilateral deficit, they dont need to be done extremely heavy and cover pretty much all bases, including a lateral aspect that is very neglected in most cases.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JpRuAzeNqg