Any device tying neutral and ground together within the device is verboten here and as you stated would have to be checked.
Not quite what I was thinking. A lot of people make the assumption that one of the two mains wires coming into a piece of equipment is at or near ground potential, more so if you have a clearly defined neutral like the UK does. It's an assumption that does not get tested when you plug something into a supply where the assumption is true (outside of fault conditions). That assumption is obviously not true if you connect to a US style 240V supply where the centre tap is at ground and both 'hot' and 'return' have significant AC potentials with respect to ground.
The danger here, as I see it, is not conscious design per se but casual assumptions like "Oh, that component is OK, as it can only see neutral and ground it'll only see more than a couple of volts" or "Yes, the clearance and creepage are tight there, but it's only a neutral." that tend to get ingrained because that's all you ever see domestically. It's probably only going to be corner cases and unusual use cases at that, but I'm only too aware of the dangers of "ploughing a rut" in any field of endeavour. We've all seen cases where unspoken assumptions come around to firmly bite someone on the arse. If and when that happens I strongly prefer it if it's not my assumption or my arse.
It works the other way round, too--------a device designed for the US 240v system will possibly have a Mains filter with capacitors from each "hot" leg to chassis.
If "chassis" is connected to the ground, the highest voltage across either cap will be maximum 120v, so a 200v rated cap is quite sufficient.
Even if there is no ground connection to the chassis, it is at a "virtual" ground potential.
Now, use the same device in the Australian "230v Live & Neutral" system.
If there is no ground connection to chassis, the capacitors become a voltage divider, with the chassis at 115v ("nominal"--often more) w.r.t Neutral/ ground.
This is not normally dangerous, as the current available through such caps is quite small.
If the chassis
is returned to ground, one cap has the usually small (single figure or less) voltage difference between Neutral & ground across it, but the other one must withstand almost the full Live/Neutral voltage, so the "adequate" 200v rated cap is no longer so.