So, you're working on your Angular + MVC/Web API project, when suddenly you get irritated with your browser caching your views for the last time. That's when it hits you. This is going to happen in production. You consult the Network tab of your browser's dev tools, and see all of the extra connections that are occurring because you made nice modular directives with separate files for your templates. Now, take a breath as you find the solution to both problems right here.
Have you ever needed two Angular directives that happened to be almost identical except for some configuration variable or callback? Yes? Hot dog, have I got something for you! It's not the most unique thing ever done with a closure, but it is a slick trick that just might help you keep your code a little more DRY.
One of the most useful talents of frameworks like Angular is the ability to create rich and dynamic applications. Being able to build directives that can dynamically spawn additional directives, allows for highly configurable, configuration driven pages that can take your applications to the next level. By using $compile, this becomes an easy 3 step process.