Grinding wheels can be profiled to any desired shape. In fact there are special attachments such as the Diaform and Optidress to achieve this, although its probably done by CNC these days. I have a Diaform on my J&S 540 just for show because I got it for a ridiculous price but really have no use for it and it’s a very specialised piece of tool-room kit. There’s an example in the Diaform manual of a wheel being profiled to grind the die for stamping out the centre of a traditional Gillette type razor blade. I would presume that wheels with enough ‘meat’ left on them could be re-profiled or the profile removed for simple surface grinding. Dunno, never done it.

BTW, I have a similar collection of surplus grinding wheels that I rescued from a skip when my erstwhile employer’s tool-room closed but which will never be used and really just take up shelf space.

That a wheel wears on its leading edge is true. You can see the cutting is only occurring in a narrow band on this 1/2” wheel. IIRC this is about 4 thou DoC, J&S540, probably a 46K wheel.

The narrow wheels will work, but you will have to dress them more frequently. I typically dress before starting and then only “cut” in one direction so the wheel wear is consistent. I’ll often manage to do whatever it is I’m grinding flat in a single dress, but I may redress for a finish pass.