For what its worth, although I can't speak to the sets Rensuya ran, I do think a lot of designers now do use physical color chips for matching their renders + ship those same chips to GMK before the color sampling stage begins. (My only evidence for this is anecdotal based on the GMK set I ran and the other designers I've talked to - I do think there are a lot of designers doing their due diligence!)

what manu would you recommend?

the watercolor effect on the novelties is incredible!

the helpful advice you should be giving others is to test their PCBs before inserting switches

And based on the pic it turns out they were right lol

Honestly....the people commenting and complaining about how the kitting is anti-consumer clearly know nothing about SP SA kitting and pricing.