10 Years LR Route - including EEA period

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I've read in many places that it is not possible to include time spent lawfully in the UK under EU law in a Set(LR) application. This is clearly not the case, if you speak to lawyers and study the guidance. Technically, the EU route is lawful, but not "leave to remain" or "exemption", and so discretion "must" be used (but the period cannot be dismissed if the application checks out otherwise).

My question is a practical one. Given the Set(LR) form demands fewer documents than EEA4, an applicant indifferently seeking PR or ILR might be tempted to try the 10 years route, if his EEA period had holes in it (say, an unmarried partnership where cohabitation ceased since the issue of the last residence card, before the 5 years were reached). Of course the risk is the application looks more suspicious, if, for example, the EEA period exceeded 5 years, since the applicant would be paying an unnecessary fee.

How does UKBA handle such "mixed" applications - do they reject automatically, demand evidence for the EEA period, or just check for absences, etc? I'd be grateful for anyone's actual experience of this - thanks!