Panasonic V-series caps

I have none. I have had very good results with them, and, as you say, they save a lot of board space.

I have no problem specifically with "V series" but in general to all Panasonic capacitors, I try to avoid designing them in. I've designed Panasonic capacitors in, in the past. It almost never fails that within a year or two you can't get the exact same part. I was forever getting questions from the purchasing department about changing the design or doing a life time buy.

I also don't consider the price of COG parts high enough to look for a different option in most cases. The size issue is where film capacitors sound like an advantage. You have to be careful what else is on the PCB with the film caps. If you are soldering large power parts down, maintaining the temperature profile for the film caps can be very hard while getting the power parts soldered.

The failure and defect rate of SMT film capacitors seems to be higher than COG by a large factor.

I have had the sme problems with panasonic, and the converse problem - can get a cap but cant get its data sheet (old stock 100V FC series).

I have melted PPS caps before :( And not just during soldering either :(

I once looked at designing a 100uF 200V NPO cap into a smps, but it cost $1/uF + $0.5/V, so I looked at Paktrons Capstick, which although 10x cheaper was still 10x too much.

Cheers Terry