>> For aerospace use reliability is king, for mobile devices space is a premium.

That's a great point. But how many different footprints need to exist for a 1206 led package from one manufacturer? Infinity? Or is it something more like 5?

>> A TSOP package from one manufacturer manufacturer is not necessarily the same as a TSOP package from another. This is not a hypothetical — I’ve been bitten by this.

But that's a different issue of a manufacturer not conforming to the spec they've published for their product. Same as a carabiner failing at a load of 100kg when it's rated for 500kg.