Integrating the high-current drivers with the parallel-output-registered shift registers, or any other product, is not easy, else more manufacturers would include them in their products.

If you use only one darlington in the ULN2803 at at time, as you might in the example that Per provided in the moving message display thread, you can use it as a controlled-current cathode driver by placing a current-control-resistor in the GND connection. That won't work if you use more than one driver simultaneously.

As for TI ... they did not get to be one of the largest and most important IC makers in the world by cheating peoplem whether in the "first-world" or the "third". Most of the exploitation is quite localized. What distributors do is not controlled by their suppliers.

RE