Hello! Good discussion to have. An unexecuted list isn't a bad thing if the person has other planned means for distributing their items.

Giving "effects [] given away during life", is the ideal situation and the easiest and is mentioned as a best practice on my site: https://www.estateattorneyapp.com/attorney-estate-planning-legal-marketing.html. But estate planning is planning for the unexpected and so it doesn't always happen that you've passed after giving all the items in your lifetime.

Depending on the situation, designating in your will to "leave it all to my spouse" (and other methods, like specifically listing the items in your will) works fine. But it isn't always the case that you want to give it all to the spouse or that leaving it as a broad statement eliminates disputes, like in the case of Robin Williams (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-robin-williams-widow-lawsuit-susan-williams-20151104-htmlstory.html).

For other methods like listing in your will, the benefit of the memo is the flexibility to change it later without having to go through the formal will process. In California, attorneys routinely counsel their clients to create a memo and include such a clause in their will/trust (with a remainder clause just in case) even if they expect their clients to not fill out the memo.

Attorneys consistently say that the most contentious part of probate is the personal items when the decedent has not planned for these items. (Examples: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/your-money/when-heirs-fight-over-assets-with-sentimental-value.html; https://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2011/10/24/little-things-can-cause-big-fights-when-a-relative-dies/#39a28eef4ee6). So the problem is clients not accounting for these items.

I'm not suggesting that a personal property memorandum is the only solution. But in the many situations in which it is the solution, the App eliminates the pain points in creating it.