I'm not sure if anyone else here has done a similar experiment, but my sample size is limited at the moment. I hope someone else can weigh in with some authority on what you've noticed with your switches.
I have a set of MX White stems and springs with no housings. When I tried them in vintage MX Black housings (free of any lubricant, cleaned stems), the result was very inconsistent click that sounded a lot like vintage MX Blues: dull and resonating and inconsistent. I had actually made a whole 60% board with those and did not like the result at all. Ended up swapping the White stems for linear stems. I find that linear and regular tactile stems work very well with vintage housings. When I tried the same stems in a couple of brand new housing from an MX Blue switch, the new combination clicked properly and crisply. That was long ago.
Does anyone know which types of MX housings are "safe" for clicky switch stems? I'm not sure if it's the vintage housings specifically that I should avoid or also modern housings from non-clicky switches. I don't have any loose modern switches at the moment to test this with (such as modern MX Red, modern MX Brown, and modern MX Blue).
