One must not forget the purpose of standards from a manufacturer's
point of view -- to increase their own sales & profits. I fail to see how any
of your proposals (whatever merit they may have) would benefit any of
the major manufacturers. Just look how long it took for vendors to
adopt Kadee-compatible couplers -- they only did it AFTER the Kadee
patents finally expired and they were able to find far less expensive
sources for compatible parts.

As I pointed out the other day, we only have DCC "standards" (such as
they are) because there was a strong economic case behind them that
benefited the manufacturers. And the features that were not standardized
or even imagined at the time, have become the subject of endless patent
litigation squabbles... We'll be lucky if, in 10-15 years, DCC still exists as
a single standard. (Think Betamax. Think Analog cell phone. Think floppy
disks.)

We on the other hand, can build our own models to our own standards.
Some people detail underframes. Some don't. Some convert everything
to scale size Kadees. Some don't. Some use .088 wheels, and most
don't. From my point of view, we all can CHOSE our own level and what
is wrong with that?

Tim O'Connor