Amen!
Yes!
Yes!
I just got off the phone with a very nice guy at NXP. Actually it was very hard to get him /on/ the phone in the first place. All I need are some jellybean parts that are sold only by the 3000pc-reel by European distributors. So I wanted some samples. As I'm working at the University in Hamburg, the first number I tried was the Hamburg sales office. Tried 5 times and never even got a ringtone. Next was Frankfurt. Got someone on the phone, but whenever she tried to get me through to someone we were disconnected (I tried this 3 times, each time got a different switchboard person who failed in the same manner). OK, Munich. Very friendly people told me that the person in charge for people "like me" (academics) was on vacation but back next week.
So I talked to him. He's going to get me samples, no problem. I asked him why the standard distributors aren't carrying these parts in small quantity, and why getting sample was so hard. Boy did I open up a can of worms. Essentially he told me all that you wrote in this post, including naming American mfgrs that are doing it the right way. I asked him how NXP expected to get designed-in when it was so hard to get your hand on their products. He said he didn't know. I asked him to maybe raise the point with someone in charge. He said he'd long stopped doing that. I said that the people making $$$ purchase decisions were at one point little engineers, scientists or hobbyists. He said he knew. Since we had agreed on pretty much everything it seemed we might as well end the conversation, which we did.
I'd love seeing that happen to someone at NXP or INfineon.
The stuff that I want is actually in stock at DigiKey. Nothing exotic. But ordering at DK from a German government office is a big hassle because they don't have a German sales office. The easiest method is going through my private credit card and getting reimbursed after a lot of red-taping. Besides, DK is generally more expensive than European distributors so it doesn't make sense to place a large order which, among some DK-only parts, contains stuff that could have been purchased locally.
Well, I always wanted to try out their BF862 and the PMBFJ620 dual (hoping to replace those expensive TO78 parts). The 620's datasheet is complete crap of course. Just a few "typical values" curves that look like someone had jotted them down in a few seconds using log-log paper and a ruler. And nothing, not even a hint, as to what kind of matching I might expect. But cheap (if you want a 3000 reel).
I can give you the extension of someone in Munich who is good at listening ;-)
--Daniel