I would certainly include this in a list of not-quite-solved issues in LDraw, as there is always some degree of conflict between curved parts that are smoothed in some way by the rendering software (i.e., by primitive substitution or surface shading), and those that aren't or cannot be. The classic example of this is the seams that appear on a minifig head, where the unpatterned part of the head is nicely represented by various curved primitives, but the face itself is rendered on just a pair of incompatible flat quads.
As for whether to use textures vs. geometry for curved patterned surfaces—I wonder if it's possible to actually combine these two ideas? That is, instead of taking a bitmap/raster image and mapping it onto an already-curved surface, could the pattern be stored as vector data (whether LDraw code, SVG or whatever), and then map that onto a surface, after any smoothing or substitution is applied by the renderer so that the pattern benefits from that process?
As for whether to use textures vs. geometry for curved patterned surfaces—I wonder if it's possible to actually combine these two ideas? That is, instead of taking a bitmap/raster image and mapping it onto an already-curved surface, could the pattern be stored as vector data (whether LDraw code, SVG or whatever), and then map that onto a surface, after any smoothing or substitution is applied by the renderer so that the pattern benefits from that process?