It is interesting that you point out that the sockets are rated for 16A rather than 15A –I hadn’t noticed that before. I’ve just checked through my box of South African plugs – I got an awful lot for some reason! – and the old ones say 250V/15A and the newer ones (say < 10 yrs) are marked 250V/16A. I have no answer as to why or when the re-rating occurred but one may be able to chase it down through the SABS.
BTW my brother-in-law’s ~20 year old house in Scotland has an 15A old style plug and cord serving as a disconnect for his immersion heater in a closet. Is this normal? I have no idea what amperage the circuit was rated as I never looked, but the heater looked full sized and I would have thought that such items were on 25A circuits or larger. Can those plugs be used for loads greater than 15A ? – I know that by law now any residential – non-lighting - outlet rated 13A or less must use the square pin, fused variety.
You mentioned the cord angle. All cords out of all RSA plugs 5A or 15(16)A come out the bottom of the plug between the live an neutral pin and flush with the wall. Obviously with the socket mounted sideways, the cord comes out of the assembly sideways but as it is still flush with the wall, it is not that untidy.
I have only recently come across a fit-it-yourself right-angle plug for here in the States made by Eagle. The varied orientations of US receptacles are neatly circumvented in its design by allowing the 3 pin sub-unit to be fixed at any of eight different angles with respect to where the cord emerges. The only example I found so far was 240V/20A and bright yellow but I’m hoping to stumble across some white 120V/15A examples and tidy up my kitchen counter.
Before I ventured far out of the UK and RSA, I had never come across plugs where the cord emerged straight out of the back. The instructions on electrical appliances that stated, “do not remove the plug from the socket by pulling on the cord” baffled me entirely as it was obviously impossible!
