Fascinating discussion. For my snakes I have always used UTH. I always thought radiant heat panels were fine to use, I've never heard of them being attributed to RIs and death.

My leopard gecko in in a PVC cage (another nocturnal belly heat needing reptile). I use ceramic tile in her enclosure. Even without a thermostat I could not get the bottom to heat up more than 80. I added a CHB and that helped but barely and only in a specific spot. Recently I switched to a RHP. It's been perfect! It gets the belly heat she needs and seems to heat up the whole enclosure to where it needs to be. I stacked some rocks so she can climb closer if needed and I put the prob on the top rock. It reads 90 while the lower rocks are 85. The cool side is now 72-75. She has tons of various spots of hot and cool.

What works for some may not work for others. If a heat panel is working just fine for a ball set up then why would one need to change to a UTH?