We are talking about variations in length of the regions. The regions examined may vary in length from 500 base pairs up to 20,000 base pairs. They differ in the multiples of repeat units of about ten. So if we are going to go from 500 to 20,000 in sets of ten, we are talking about thousands of types, far too many to distinguish on current gels. So binning strategies have been developed to amalgamate alleles that are close together.
Different laboratories use different binning strategies.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, for example, uses PCR mitochondrial sequence data to identify war remains. This method can make very specific identification using only a few hundred base pairs. It seems straightforward enough from the scientific perspective what these tests are measuring and that they offer high levels of reliability and accuracy. I believe that there is no such debate. When we look at the scientific literature, which is where science is discussed, the published peer-reviewed papers are overwhelmingly in favor of this technology and the protocols and analytic methods used.