Not if you can initialize them at the time of declaration. IMO, that should be the default policy, and there should be ample comments apologizing for not doing

Not if you can initialize them at the time of declaration. IMO, that should be the default policy, and there should be ample comments apologizing for not doing it. People don't build unterminated communications lines nor use PIO without pullups/pulldowns. Programmers should be the same way. Perhaps I've led a charmed life, but I've never seen a case where proper initialization was a problem.