My house and all houses in my development were built in 1995 and have one. Most programmable thermostats recommend using a C wire(or batteries, but if they're being put in a new development they generally put the C wire in), and programmable thermostats have been "strongly recommended"/mandatory in many states for new developments for quite a while.
Also have a relative in an older development that used the PEK and he can control his fan independently of the hvac just fine... I've actually more commonly heard of some control boards that mess with the fan if you use the C wire rather than the power extension kit, since the control board basically fakes the C wire using the G wire as the Nest does if you don't have a C wire. The PEK works differently.
It has nothing at all to do with programmable Vs. non-programmable. All of the homes I mentioned above, including ours, have a programmable thermostat.
You don't need a C wire for a programmable thermostat. The other channels provide power, the C wire just provides more. It is useful if you want to run a color LCD screen or WiFi. If you have a thermostat with a black & white calculator-like LCD, it likely doesn't have a C wire running to it.
> I've actually more commonly heard of some control boards that mess with the fan if you use the C wire rather than the power extension kit, since the control board basically fakes the C wire using the G wire as the Nest does if you don't have a C wire.
What? That would burn out thermostats. How would the control board know to pass 24Vac through a low voltage line? Can you link anything to this "common thing" that control boards do? Sorry but I'm extremely skeptical of that, it doesn't even make sense from a thermostat signal point of view, since they'd just assume you would run C if C was required during installation rather than doing the hack you're suggesting here.
The reality is that C isn't required on almost any included thermostat, programmable or simple. Good installers run the C but terminate it, bad installers just don't run the unneeded C. I've never heard or read about a first party control board which acts like a bypass kit out of the box, and I don't even understand the point.
Also have a relative in an older development that used the PEK and he can control his fan independently of the hvac just fine... I've actually more commonly heard of some control boards that mess with the fan if you use the C wire rather than the power extension kit, since the control board basically fakes the C wire using the G wire as the Nest does if you don't have a C wire. The PEK works differently.