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I've had the same problem. I found the padded shirts to be a nice solution. There are tons of options out there. I have CCM version, it's a decent piece. If you want to get more robust you could try some Box Lacrosse pads. They're a little beefy/bulky though. Might be better for coverage when recovering as opposed to an every day solution.

I use FT4 Pro shoulders too. The Hex shirt pads sometimes get "caught" on the ft4 pro side panels which can be slightly annoying. However I’ve also tried the EvoShield shirt with the rigid rib pads which are WAY more protective than the HEX, but also much more obtrusive.

I have these after I got cross checked to the ribs: https://www.mcdavidusa.com/collections/hex-padded-tops/products/hex-basketball-tank-3-pad They're not perfect but they're the closest thing I've used that is also the least obtrusive. Once the rib bruising went away however, I stopped using it. So for me, it's not a preventative piece of gear...more to protect an already compromised area. McDavid also makes this which can be cut to size as needed: https://www.mcdavidusa.com/products/hex-skin-turf-tape

Even high end pads don't have a ton of padding on the side/ribs. Easiest thing might be to get a padded shirt, I think they're for football, but they have padding on the rib area (I used to get them for my son who plays lax goalie, also would get them to cut the pads out to attach elsewhere for different things). I'd say try the shirt, they're relatively cheap, or find some rib padding for football/lax (I've seen it in Dicks) and attach to the shoulder pads or straps (someone on here once attached padding to the side straps, I can't find the thread though).

TRUE skates are stiff laterally, but they allow for lots of forward flexion in the way the boot and eyelets are designed. I rarely ever compare TRUE to anything else because while they might not look significantly different overall, the actual implementation of very subtle changes is quite dramatic. I consider that their "special sauce." Agree 100% that what works for me, maybe not work for others. What works for others may not work for me. I can only share what I know first hand and have experienced. YMMV. I have had only had one person get 100K skates (custom or retail) and dislike them. This is compared to many people who have purchased the Hyperlite skates and had significant regret and later swapped back to their previous skates or to some other model. It seems like they either work for the player or don't, there is not a middle ground. I can also share that I had a customer recently purchase custom Hyperlite skates with standard eyelets, full lock fit liner, with a standard tongue. He was very happy with them. He previously had Vapor 1X skates with standard eyelets and he said the Hyperlite felt "like home" for his feet. He is about 0.5 size larger than me and I was able to test his skates and the standard options he selected felt much better to me than the retail model. Again, everyone is different. Some like the injected eyelets, some don't. Some like the new tongue, others won't. Some will like the new outsole design, others may find no benefit. I think the direction Bauer is going with the Vapor is interesting. I like that they are trying out new ideas. However, I think some of these implementations yield little benefit and are more "show" as opposed to actual innovations in skate engineering dynamics.