> Cinching is like NASA practice or something. ;-)

Can't they just afford double sided boards? :-)


> Back in the early days of electronics, pre-PCBs even,
> it used to be felt that solder joints should NEVER be
> used to support the (then rather heavy) component,
> but obviously that rule of thumb is no longer followed
> (SMT parts, for example, seldom have anything but
> the solder joints supporting them).

A bit irrelevant considerations. We are talking NOT about supporting
weight, we are talking about soldered surfaces being parallel, not
perpendicular. SMTs do have such pads parallel to PCB's copper
surface.
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