They probably did, yeah. Is that guy passively cooled? If so, they couldn't afford too many watts before the chip would start into thermal runaway and burn up.
Yeah. The sides of these things are actually aluminum (I always thought they were plastic) and the side has a heatsink protruding directly onto the chip (with some paste in-between of course).
I’ve been away from these parts for a few years. Cool to see the evolution of the Pac products. I miss my little sticks.