Hard agree.

While I appreciate the hypothetical portability of .step files, I've found them to barely be any better than publishing STLs in practice.

Anything I publish is in FreeCAD's format (and .STLs for the people who just want to print it quickly and easily). If people want it in another format, they are free to download FreeCAD and export it in whatever format they want. No lock in to a specific tool or even O/S.