Reading the descriptions of A-3 and A-4, to me it sounds like PDF/A jumped the shark and for archival purposes the old A-2 might still be the best variant. In

Reading the descriptions of A-3 and A-4, to me it sounds like PDF/A jumped the shark and for archival purposes the old A-2 might still be the best variant. In general, embedding files in PDF is kinda neat capability, like the example of having (CSV) dataset embedded in report or something like that. But at the same time I get the feeling that its an indication of general shortcoming of our file handling that it makes sense to use PDF as a container format. ZIP files and such are pretty crude formats for higher-level file bundles and the UX falls short too.