some people want to do other things in their lives, beside test thermal paste for weeks on end;)
in the end the difference is marginal, and doesn't matter much, if your system stability depends on what thermal paste is used and how it's applied, you have an issue ;)

For TEC's the middle droplet doesn't work that well, it's hard to spread out to TIM over the whole TEC that way. Instead, take your finger and spread it out yourself, then mount the heatsink/WB.

if you could increase pressure on the TEC more it will spread out better;)