Not knowing how to place a template is not far off. Sure, and mistakes will be made... but let's see they get corrected. Honestly what this is really about is a old infinity problem of not really knowing how the basic game is played... still.
Last time I checked I don't demo smoke placement. So if it's part of the basic game we must all be doing something wrong
I tend to make templets part of my teaching games with extra attention placed on shotguns because they tend to confuse people. Well that is kinda the point... we might be doing something wrong.
Speaking of placing smoke templates without using speculative fire, are the following actions legal in your local meta: Q1: Model on a lower level has LoF to the edge of the roof -> Model can place the smoke template blast focus on the roof, if the blast focus touches the edge of the roof. Q2: Smoke grenade blast focus doesn’t need to placed completely on a flat surface -> even a microscopic flat surface can be targeted by smoke grenade.
And then it's reached full circle where people on the FAQ committee enforce their own lack of reading of the rules on the community...
In both cases the answer for us locally is that you need a 3mm x 3mm flat space, that you have LOF to. Which precludes both of the above. I'm not sure this is actually reflective of the strict requirements (happy to have that confirmed either way) but it cuts down on malarkey.