Yes, generally you don't want the pads to be thick. That's probably why you guys are seeing overheating problems with the memory chips, 1.5mm or 0.07" is quite thick already, normally these things are more like 0.2mm or something to that effect. They are used as silicon paste replacement as they don't create a mess or migrate easily, except apparently these ones do; another problem is that pads are expensive, which you guys already know... They also lets you cool different height chips without a flat cooling plate, which is what's going on here I believe. You can even buy kind of tack on putty that will mould to the components when you press it in but that's a different story.
I checked around a bit and it seems this Gelid stuff is actually fairly high performance one and priced pretty low. What is not good at all is that they tell you sweet F-A of what material it is, what the compressibility and other characteristics are, in other words, there is no datasheet, no designer would go near that stuff without more information. T-global is a big player in TIM, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually make the gelid pads, they have similar performance pads (not necessarily cheaper) but since there's no starting point to know even the compressibility or the material type..
