Standards for what color the lights should be for stop, caution and go are quite useful, as are how to design electrical outlets. So while standards do not always apply to every situation, they greatly reduce the amount of variation we have to deal with. After all, specifications are standards, just not necessarily developed by a standards body (although in the case of types of steel, aluminum, etc. they are).
Of course the types of standards you reference are useful and in many cases very desired.
However, your examples are not the same as the type of 'standard' that was meant. I thought I was fairly clear that my reference to a standard was limited to the OP's use in his question: wanting to know if their was a standard to justify the use of a 1/4 or 1/3 resolution of a measurement system.
The two standards you mentioned that might justify a 1/4 resolution are decades old and come from a time when computers rare or at least not commonly used and analyses were done by hand...they have both been primarily superceded, one by ISO9000.

WARNING: WHAT FOLLOWS IS A RANT. IT IS NOT FIRED DIRECTLY AT THE POSTER QUOTED ABOVE BUT TO BE A GENERAL STATEMENT THAT WILL NO DOUBT TAKE THIS POST OFF TOPIC.
However, my concern is not the age of these standards but my original statement regarding
using logic and reason to determine the resolution that will be useful given the application. Just because a standard says so, doesn't mean it's true.
In general I am more concerned that the quality profession has moved further from thinking and closer to a simple "if a standard or my Customer says I have to do this to comply, or if I can get a standard to justify my lack of thoughtful input or learning that's what I'll do and no more."
Have we all lost our collective minds?
Many on this forum provide - or attempt mightily to provide - thoughful input to questions posted here. the input is meant to teach, learn, explore, reason and hopfully in the end raise the collective usefullness of all who come here.
Now I know that I am most likely merely annoyed by some of the recent posts that seem to have been looking for "agreement" statements to "prove" their point as if we can vote to change the laws of physics; or even the less benign but far more troubling "I've just appointed to implement SPC, or Capability studies or
FMEA or whatever and I have no idea how to do this or what it means". I feel for these posters. Their managment has essentially said "this is a requirement; someone has to ensure that we comply to it and I picked you". There is no concern about doing the right thing; only about doing what is necessarry to comply. These situations simply tarnish our profession. Blind compliance to a requirement does not provide quality. But it seems more and more that this is all we have time to do. The proliferation of 'standards' that dictate exactly how to apply quality are obviating our need to think and reason and improve. (my sincere apologies to those who just blew their morning coffee thru their noses; that must have hurt! and for those who are firing up to tell me how useful ISO or AS or whatever is, let me say now that I agree that standards have usefullness; just not when all logic and reason are suspended in their application and execution)
I would refer to Bert Gunter's "Final Fusillade" in his Statistics Corner column for the April 1998 issue of Quality Progress. He states it much more eloquently than I ever could:
"What is the state of the quality profession today? In a word, deplorable. I am frankly dismayed by what I believe has been a retreat from the activism and professionalism of 10 years ago to what seems to me to be a return to the bad old days of passive checking of conformance to rules...This
is all form and no substance, much like the old (and superseded, I hope) military procedures that required 30 pages of documentation to assure that off-theshelf commercial underwear met requirements."
Well, I guess that about does it. I'm going to hit "submit reply" before I lose my nerve