Okay, replying to my own post.
My company is moving away from the MC1496 for one big reason: The recent date codes of the MC1496 exhibit an increased sensitivity to temperature. As compared to 2007 date codes, the 2011 date codes are extremely temperature sensitive (up to 5 to 27% FSO/deg C), that is, 5 to 27 times the drift of the 2007 date codes. So far On Semi has been dragging their feet, primarily because they don't test for temperature sensitivity. My suggestion is that you design with discrete components (transistor pairs), even if all you do is follow the MC1496 schematic. This way you have more control of your design. One way to mitgate the temperature drift is to make sure that you do not run more than 2 to 3 ma through the bias resistor (pin 5). The larger the bias current, the more temperature sensitivity you will experience. This, of course, may make your output decrease, making you use higher gains, with resulting higher noise, downstream.
