Len,
You have reiterated my original point. I added numerous compression fittings to my gas system. When I got smarter and learned that compression fittings were not legal because they eventually leak I redid everything I had done to bring it back to original, and safe, spec. The 45 degree "DOUBLE", and I repeat "DOUBLE", flare fittings are the only way to go for gas and those are at the appliance/manifold ends of a spliceless copper tube.
Your caution was not wasted on me even if I had already been there. I know in my heart that there is somebody out there that will NOT make the same mistake I did because of your warning. That will most probably save a life down the line and neither of us will know that and neither will the guy that would have made the mistake. I consider redoing my gas system to make it pretty and more space efficient one of my greatest follies and it could have cost me my life. I would have been spared the added work and years of danger had I asked nearly anybody in the trade about what I planned to do. TRUISM: "You don't know what you don't know".
Thanks from the bottom of my uncooked heart. Still raw in Eugene,
John