Everyone who has worked a lot with the raw data of a manuscript knows that scribes seem to do many things on a whim, without any discernible rule. Editors of our modern text hate scribes for this and expect that the original that lies behind the manuscript tradition shows more consistency. But this is a dangerous attitude, since any imposed consistency may hide something more subtle in the language of the author - a notion of consistency is based on our understanding of the language rather than an attempt to reflect the manuscript tradition.
An example from the Gospel of Mark. Nine times we find the third person plural 'they said', ειπον / ειπαν. In NA26/27 it is spelled consistently ειπαν. In each of the nine cases there is manuscript support for ειπαν but in two cases this support is unusually slim, 11:6 and 16:8. In the latter ειπαν is only read by Bezae, all other witnesses read ειπον (nice to talk about Mark 16:8 without mentioning the ...).
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What has happened here? Once we accept the external case for ειπον in 11:6 and 16:8 (and you guess correctly that this will be the reading of the Tyndale House edition), we see that of all nine cases of 'they said', these are the only two that are not followed by direct speech. It may be coincidence, it may be not. However, simply the possibility that such observations can be made now, is for me sufficient reason not to attempt too much orthographic consistency; there may be more going on than I understand at this moment.
An example from the Gospel of Mark. Nine times we find the third person plural 'they said', ειπον / ειπαν. In NA26/27 it is spelled consistently ειπαν. In each of the nine cases there is manuscript support for ειπαν but in two cases this support is unusually slim, 11:6 and 16:8. In the latter ειπαν is only read by Bezae, all other witnesses read ειπον (nice to talk about Mark 16:8 without mentioning the ...).
What has happened here? Once we accept the external case for ειπον in 11:6 and 16:8 (and you guess correctly that this will be the reading of the Tyndale House edition), we see that of all nine cases of 'they said', these are the only two that are not followed by direct speech. It may be coincidence, it may be not. However, simply the possibility that such observations can be made now, is for me sufficient reason not to attempt too much orthographic consistency; there may be more going on than I understand at this moment.