I know back in the 70's and 80's, some of the companies I had contact with had a strict policy to avoid nanoFarads and milliFarads to avoid confusion, particularly at a time when there was far more manual assembly. Even though parts often came on reels, the leads would be cut and formed in stores ready for hand placement, and the assemblers would pick parts out of bins.
A 100nF polyester cap could be the same size as a silver-mica 100pF cap. Since caps rarely used colour-code to represent values and some caps had no "p", "n" or "u", it was really easy to make mistakes. Is a ceramic cap with just "33" on it 33pF or 33nF? If you only buy capacitors that use 33 or 33p for 33pF and 0.033 or 0.033u for 33nF, it was hard to make a mistake.
In the surface mount era, it is not as big an issue. If you are dependent upon someones eyesight to check the correct valued resistors and capacitors are in place, you are in big trouble.
I have no idea if any companies still avoid nF as a strict policy. I think today, if you can get a part labelled 10nF cheaper then an equivalent part labelled 0.01uF, it is a no-brainer - you get the cheaper part.