Bill, Excellent explanation.

If a visual helps, imagine a 9 pane window, solder paste goes in the glass, vias go in the muntins.  Of course, communicate to your assembly vendor.  Not all of them will recognize the via pattern as this concept, and most will not use your solder paste gerber data as is.

We've done this for years quite successfully.  We haven't had a thermal need for additional copper in the holes.  In a few applications that required filled vias elsewhere on the board, we were able to use larger  epoxy filled type VII vias for thermal transfer without worrying about the window panes.

Pete

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