I am going to be somewhat provocative:
The history of variable-star catalogues is a kind of permanent
crisis due to wrong decisions
(Argelander’s system of designating variable
stars using letters; the attempt of the “Astronomische Gesellschaft” to issue catalogues every year; the tradition of globular-cluster variables kept outside the general catalogue;
etc.).
Now we are facing a new crisis, mainly because of the great flow of
data from automatic surveys, and should not
make new mistakes, especially serious
ones.