To be honest, these days, unless you know C++ for engine modifications, have liminted internet bandiwdth limits, or NEED a fix commited to github, the answer is a simple plain no.
The binary version is compiled just like compiling from source…
If you want to test drive newer versions yes, but they are completely unsupported. The “stable” version is the same one released in 4.8 4.8.1 4.8.2 4.8.3 and so on for hotfixes,
This is why we get hotfixes that are small, they cant edit major parts of the engine without releasing a whole new 4.xx version.
Don’t forget to accept an answer that best clears your question up or answers it so when the community finds your question in the future via search/google they know exactly what you did to fix it/get it going.
In general you can selectively build engine modules for game if you modify build scripts right (at least i think), you can also use UE4’s different build configurations (Client only without server code, dedicated server only without client). You can make debug build which makes debugger work better. Also if you build from source you generate your own PDB files (program database, machine code maps, thanks to those files debugger can translate memory addresses to positions in the code) makeing them 100% accurate.
If you using C++ i recommend you to use source build, it only brings benefits, aspecially that debug build.
Just remember to not rebuild you code project or else you will rebuild entire engine you can avoid that by adding “-rocket” at the end of clean and rebuild command line in VS project properties, keep in mind that if you regenerate project files that configuration go back to default.
Having the source easily accessible from your project is a non-trivial example. I’d use the source just to find things faster especially if you’re still getting started and don’t know all the functions available to you.