Only if they want to save a few cents and end up with an uncertifiable cable plant with limited options for future expandability.
Great points, B! Those are definitely something to consider.
And you're right, for a few cents it doesn't make sense. But what about when a customer would like a second camera near another already placed previously, at the end of a long home run? What would you likely charge for the new cable, labor and certification? Ballpark.
As for the EIA certification of the long cable segment itself, there's no reason it couldn't be certified as long as it was terminated properly at both ends. To test the splitters themselves plus the long run plus panel/plates, you would need two additional splitters at the endpoints that would recombine the two halves back into one plug to connect to the tool and loopback. Of course you would remove the additional splitters in production, but one would expect that would only enhance performance. Still I concede that you might feel this test is dodgy....
As for the ISO/IEC 11801 standard, 2 pair TO configurations are allowed, as well as pair re-assignment, so I believe it could pass, for the proper 100Mb class. Would you agree or am I overlooking something?
As for the future expandibility, that IS what I am talking about in this example, though I believe you are speaking most likely about future 1000Mb links. But since even 4k cameras don't require 1000Mb, it's likely gonna be a few years or more before that kind of capacity is needed by one camera, whereas the customer could decide that they need 2 cameras tomorrow.
More importantly there is no 'loss of future options' since the long cable itself is certified and can be used at anytime in the future for 1000Mb Ethernet, if that is what is desired.
Maybe my discussion title is unnecessarily challenging, because I do understand the importance of standards and conformity. I was curious though if there were any technical reasons that would kill it before it even getting to the standards debate.