rlogiacco:
My question is: am I wrongly reading the datasheet, missing something else or should all those LED cubes out there keep burning shift registers quite often? Even taking in consideration that kind of current is flowing for a fraction of a second, it's so much above the spec those registers should not survive for long.Thanks to any good shepard willing to shine some light here...
Short version: Nobody ever reads datasheets.
rlogiacco:
"shouldn't we consider all those cubes faulty and bad design?"
Yes. A lot of their builders don't even use resistors.
rlogiacco:
"how come those cubes seem so popular and don't burn out the shift registers?"
Dumb luck.