It looks like in a lot of industries non-insulated crimp with heat shrink or electrical tape is the norm and insulated crimps are more used for cosmetic reasons like end user installations, etc.
Is this correct?
Most uninsulated terminals I've seen from factories had no insulation added at all, mainly because the terminal itself is often fulled exposed (think a ring terminal fastened to a stud) and what difference does an extra fraction of an inch of exposed metal in the crimped barrel/collar of the terminal going to make?
Also, factories don't generally use a crimp on uninsulated terminals like you'd get from a pair of WT111M crimpers or similar. Instead they use terminals that have a split collar and the collar is crimped onto the wire so that it forms a groove down the center where the ends of the split collar come together and are bent/rolled down in. This is sometimes referred to as a "double roll crimp". I have a good example of this on an uninsulated ring terminal in one of my arcade machines, but I only have a webcam so I can't get a picture of it.
This picture is close enough though, in that it shows the type of crimp that I'm talking about:
Factories do use insulated terminals sometimes too (usually in the form of quick disconnect terminals, but also splice caps and **** connectors); there are plenty of them in my arcade machines. Nintendo liked to use Amp brand QDs, which are crimped like in the picture above, and then have a translucent form-fitted rubber insulator that slides up over the QD, like so:
Don't confuse those with similar looking ones that are used with normal crimpers and have full coverage
hard plastic insulation that can not slide on and off the terminal.
Other companies often used the same half-insulated terminals that you can find at any hardware store. Here is what a factory crimp looks like on one of those:
