Bench Presses have never felt quite "right" with regard to my shoulders,
and being I began weight-training when benches were just regarded as
"another exercise" and not the end-all/be-all measure of machismo they
are today, I never worked very hard on them. In the early 60s it was
"How much can you press?" not "How-much-ya-bench?" They DO, however,
provide a fairly direct means of working the pecs; but as I entered my
sixth decade I found they were increasingly hard
on my shoulders.

So what's a guy to do?

In my case I found that working very hard on close grip half-pulldowns (pulling
from arms length to just a little past halfway) always had my PECS SORE the
next day. Upon reviewing my biomechanics textbooks it turns out that the pecs
are VERY strongly involved in INITIATING that downward pull, more strongly than
even the lats. What it doesn't hit is the clavicular portion of that muscle, but
those are worked more vigorously than most people appreciate in overhead presses
as long as one avoids too wide a grip. I competed in Olympic style lifting back
when the standing press was one of the lifts, and my incline benching strength
was always STRONGER than my flat bench -- which is clavicular pecs.

Anyway, the short of it is that I haven't benched in two years now but HAVE
worked hard on the presses and half-pulldowns, and my pecs are much BETTER
DEVELOPED THAN WHEN I WAS BENCHING -- without the shoulder pain.
An added bonus was not having to do so much biceps work. Ever notice how
the biceps and brachialis cut out at the halfway mark of a chin or pulldown?
They're just along for the ride during that second, or bottom, half. The
continuous tension of "top-half-only" pulldowns really works those arm
flexors! By the way, the b&W pic is of Herman Goerner, one of the three
strongest people in the world pre-World War II. Goerner never bench pressed
in his life; the lift didn't exist back then (1920s). He did, however, do
all kinds of overhead lifts AND DEADLIFT 727 POUNDS WITH ONE HAND, A record
NEVER BROKEN! More on this later -- and how watching GORILLAS on TV got
me thinking.