In case anyone has been interested in the identity of the admin-boundary-derived ‘localities’ mentioned above, after closer inspection I think they are neither parishes (largely historical cadastral admin areas) nor current ABS SSCs (statistical areas) nor current gazetted ‘Localities and State Suburbs’ (officially recognised area names); but they may be ‘suburbs’ as shown on some (presumably out-dated) maps such as the NSW base map that can be viewed on the LPI SIX website (consistent with the source tag). For example, Palmwoods is included under Main Arm and Middle Pocket is included under The Pocket in current ‘State Suburbs’. See for example http://betaworks.abs.gov.au/betaworks/betaworks.nsf/projects/ASGSBoundariesOnline/frame.htm
But this does not alter (except to strengthen) the underlying propositions:
(i) Localities as identified by locals frequently do not coincide with the geographic centre of an eponymous administrative area (defined by a boundary that governments are free to change over time).
(ii) It is probably better not to label administrative areas in OSM, to avoid confusion with eponymous localities, hamlets, villages, towns, cities, shires etc.
(iii) But because some OSM contributors will label administrative areas, it is very helpful if the (mkgmap) conversion styles assign these to different TYP codes, so that users can choose which labels they wish to display on their own maps/computers/GPSr units.
(iv) It would also be good to use a separate TYP code for non-admin-area-derived localities, so that these can be displayed as areas (no place dot) as distinct from hamlets, villages, towns etc which can logically and by convention be associated with a dot location on a map.
The MPC TYP codes seem to allow this by:
OSM boundary=administrative & place=locality (or anything below state level): Point Type 01f/00 (county)
OSM place=locality & boundary!=*: Point Type 064/0a (locale)
OSM place=hamlet; Point Type 00c/00 (town < 5K)
Other OSM place tags can translate to other Point Types (depending on current population) as noted above.
If the boundaries themselves are desired for display, MPC offers these Line Types (again lifted from TYPViewer):
Type=0x1c: Major political boundary (typically used for state, provincial borders)
Type=0x1d: Minor political boundary (typically used for county/parish borders)
Type=0x1e: International boundary