I really don't see obscure stuff happening....in some of my prelim testing, a couple made-for-thermal-performance TIMs were already having a hard time coping with the heatload and I don't really feel like playing Pin the Tail On the Donkey trying to find a household item with acceptable performance that may or may not exist (for reference, I already did test a generic thermal pad and it completely failed...and a pure silicone oil was a near-failure, and it's a sibling component of most TIMs out there!).

As for application method, I'm also interested in what is best, but the hurdles to overcome for testing are significant. I reckon at least 15 mounts per method. Add onto that the individual differences between TIMs (a line may be best for one TIM, but almost definitely not for all), and you're looking at an undertaking that's best left to the individual manufacturers of each TIM, IMO. As such, I'm going to be following manufacturers instructions for each TIM. I personally don't think making a line is easier than making a blob in the center, I think they're all equal until you start adding steps, like spreading (I'm generally anti-spreading....though the painting from Zalman STG1 is pretty darn fun).

I'm already looking at 20-24 TIM tests at 2.5-3.5 days per TIM at 100% testing efficiency (I think I want to do 7 mounts per manually applied TIM and 5 for pre-measured like IX/LMP), at 12 hours per mount. Any hiccup (power outage, brown out, testbed issues, travel, whatever) will just make things even slower. Bare minimum I'm looking at 20*2.5 = 50 days of straight testing and at the highside I'm looking at 24*4 = 96 days of testing. Step back and think about just how long of a test this is going to be....