All power hungry, and 'S and 'AS difficult to use.
I think I know understand what you mean by "difficult to use". Especially that high "low level" input current. Makes use of pull-down resistors impossible (I'd like pull downs in this case, because low level should be the "default" and I want transistors for the open-collector output).
I breadboarded up some circuits.
For the 74S174 nothing really worked as expected (never kept the corresponding LED lit when releasing a button, if it even lit up in the first place). It was a little bit better with a 74F174 (it at least lit up the right LED, but also mostly "lost" it when releasing the button). I guess manual buttons and gates that rely on transistions really don't mix.
I also found a 74HCT174 (yes, the CMOS version!). It kind of worked with that (90% of the time), but was still glitchy. Still even for that there was a fine line of component values (see the cirsuits below; the resistors and capacitors after the diodes to create the clock pulse). A clock transistion that came through too fast, would mean the buttons hadn't settled from bouncing. A "slowed" pulse would glitch the result on the CP transition back to GND.
A little bit more successful is a circuit with a 74HCT573 (that's an 8-times latch like the 373, just with different pinout). That's the circuit which is currently on the breadboard (schematic also below). The circuit is very similar to the D-flip-flop version, just needed to make sure the latch's "load" pin is "held" shorter than the button itself. I'd say it works as expected on 99% of button pushes (short button pushes creating most of the problems of those). Still fiddling with component values is needed.
What did I learn from all of this: use a microcontroller
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. If this wasn't for fun, I wouldn't even have started with logic gates. Also considering how many additional components (resistors, diodes, capacitors, transistors) are necessary to make it work, it's not worth it for anything else but fun. As for the box of old logic ICs: maybe I should shred them and check if some had gold bond wires?
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