What is the preferred method for mapping sidewalks?

I have noticed a continual increase of sidewalks (pavements) being mapped as highway=footway adjacent to streets, whereby no increase in content is gained and the map therefore gets more cluttered, etc. and more connection errors are made. The sidewalk attribute is more than adequate in most cases and IMHO sidewalks should only be mapped separately (as highway=path) if they are combined with bicycle lanes either segregated yes or no. This leads to the following question: Should one remove these redundant ways and add the sidewalk attribute to the pertinent street? This would lead to some bitterness between some contributors and we don't want that, do we?. As contacting every perpetrator is not an option I just leave things as they are. Anyway I am not sure that I am right! If not then every parallel sidewalk should be connected to highway=crossing which again is just means more redundant information. What, then, is the preferred way? If the sidewalk attribute is preferred then shouldn't OSMI indicate this and report redundant ways under "routing"?