It does: rain sits on the ledges and can enter more easily on mixed boxes. Storage of standard boxes is more efficient than mix'n'match, and transport ditto. Bigger boxes use more natural resources; complicated boxes with vast, unnecessary landing boards take more energy to design and produce; multiple designers sitting in multiple offices resolving similar factors is wasteful.
You may think that such small aspects of one object may not make much of a practical or global difference, but if the design and production of more objects were standardised the cumulative environmental and practical savings would be significant. Alas, we've lost the plot when it comes to UK poly hive manufacture because the interested parties didn't see the bigger picture, pick up the phone and work to pool resources.
The jumble of designs we have now would have made Einstein smile because he understood the principle of decision fatigue: his wardrobe held only five suits and he wore them in rotation, and for good reason: the brain energy needed to decide what to wear was eliminated. Why does Mark Zuckerberg do the same? Why did Steve Jobs? Barack Obama understood the idea and wore the same coloured suit every day. Wearing one design freed them to use the saved energy to make bigger decisions.
This applies to beekeepers as much as world leaders because the use of common equipment prevents decision fatigue. If you're like me then you'll have a ragbag collection of National gear that more or less works. Can I stick that BHS National poly brood onto a sixty year old Steele & Brodie floor? Er, maybe, but it takes fiddling to consider, try it, bung it on and hope that it works. It will, but faffing consumes precious energy and decision fatigue will kick in eventually.
A hive should be like a uniform: standard issue; I dream of such a day.
and there generally better made/materials and cheaper.
