BS 1363 and the various modern european standards are all pretty sturdy and safe connectors. Those half baked adaptors are totally unacceptable and should be banned. They're basically "hacks". Many of them are made by very unreputable manufacturers or are completely unbranded. I doubt a quality maker like MK or GE or whoever would produce such rubbish.
The BS 1363 to Schuko adaptors i've seen try to get the earthpin to contact the earth springs in the schuko socket.. a VERY shoddy sollution!
The other major problem I see with adaptors is the massive growth in the use of mobile phones etc all of which have heavy xformer-plugs. People take these things on vacation and they often are too heavy to work with an adaptor. A BS 1363 xformer plug will work fine and be held firmly in place by a BS1363 socket but when you plug it into one of those dodgy schuko adaptors it will usually fall straight out of the wall.
The only sollution is to provide adaptors with a moulded on schuko plug and a BS socket on a short cable or visa-versa.. The same sollution for Italian/Swiss/Danish and Australian systems would work fine.
Or alternatively:
Plug to standard 16amp IEC connector (kettle lead style) and make various sockets with IEC connectors.. (IEC - schuko, IEC - Australian, IEC - BS1363, IEC - BS546, IEC - Italian, IEC - Israli, IEC - Swiss, IEC - Danish, IEC - French) I think that would cover everyone!
