Hello Spehro,
Guess it's like Jim said. You weigh the costs of membership versus what you get out of it. Sometimes I have my doubts. Look at mundane stuff such as the pin numbers on SOT23 packages. I guess the IPC would be responsible for spreading that standard. Didn't work at all. I just (almost) got a big bloody nose on a design because a manufacturer designated as pin 3 what usually is pin 1. What a chaos. Why become a member then?
Regards, Joerg