Steven et al; I now have this picture in my head of a black Suburban pulling up and the Address Standards Police piling out....
When I worked for State Government the standing joke was if you want a project to die, form a committee. It wouldn't be so funny if it weren't so true. I can't tell you how many standards committees I've been on; almost as many invitations to them that I've turned down.
What I see as a suitable standard is as I mentioned; a basic template that covers the most basic information. The field names don't really need to be the same: it really doesn't matter if you call it the LF_ADDR or the Left_From_Addresses, or what ever, just so you have something in place that can be translated or mapped to another database.
Attached is a spreadsheet for a streets feature class attributes table. The first worksheet (Streets09) is the original schema I used to manage and it has some very specific fields in it for specific uses. Remember when I suggested to follow the money? VECC is who I work for and they were the ones who ponied up a server and SDE, along with me to manage it for all the cities that VECC dispatches for. So I got to set the 'standard'. Each one of the fields is color coded as to what agency it is specific to, or if it's universal.
Take a look at Streets2013; much lighter weight with only two VECC specific fields, because VECC still controls the vertical and horizontal. But you get the point; trim it down to the basics that even the stodgiest of committee members can agree upon. Personally, I'm not too worried about the black Suburban...
That should just about do it....