We need to clarify if 'real' is the 'default floating point type'or not.

[BCS]

Reply to Don,

[good stuff removed]

this looks like a good cases for a pile of aliases (and the overloads you 
mentioned).

alias for:

fast_*,   largest with much speed penalty
best_*,  best supported 
HW_*,   w/ full HW support
IEEE_*, IEEE compliant
pow2_*, power of 2 length
...

these would be used like:  best_HW_IEEE_pow2_real (or something like that)