Guys, i understand why we shouldn't use samples, i agree with the logic.
If the chip is available, i will just buy it. It takes less time and it's a drop in the ocean that is the cost of designing something anyway.
But if the chip is not available to buy, though you make it available only through samples, and you refuse to provide it without even telling me why, and i'm not asking as an individual but as a business, well.. at this point i may just redesign your chip out of the project
The pattern is literally go to TI website, find part, see that it has stock, add to cart, go to checkout. At the moment of reviewing the order the stock is magically not available anymore but if i want i can request one offs/samples but i have to be in the sample program. So apply for program, sorry declined, you're on your own.
The experience with microchip is completely the opposite. It has to be approved as well but you can talk to somebody in case and the only time it was declined in years of using the program was for an engineering sample (and that was because they wouldn't give it away unless you promised to buy reels which wasn't the case, i wanted to experiment with a different approach to a problem. When i asked there weren't dev tools available otherwise i would have bought the devtool directly)