heavy third arm (snakeclamp)

[FUZZZZzzzz]

looks useful imo.. but I know a lot of you guys made something yourselves to assist you on the workbench.

http://snakeclamp.com/Category/workholding-snakeclamp-work-holding-third-arm.

[Processaurus]

That seems nice to have it adjustable without having to untighten/retighten things.

Not the same thing but for the same task we have what's been a surprisingly handy soldering jig for holding circuit boards, just a wood 1"x4" with a few diagonal slots cut into the wood ( like \ \ \ \ ) that a PCB can rest in at an angle for soldering through hole components.

I feel like I've seen some elaborate commercial soldering jigs that make flipping the board from component side to solder side quick.  Then again I've done 95% of my soldering just on a table or an ESD mat, and never thought it was an inferior way to work.  The jigs seem to come into play when you want to hold the board in the air to solder repair/mod a board without unscrewing all the pots and switches from the enclosure, and are limited by the wires being too short to get the board out on the table.

[Blitz Krieg]

there have been advances in goose neck technology?

[CodeMonk]

there have been advances in goose neck technology?

Yes there have been.
They call it Romex 

[PRR]

> They call it Romex

There's another snazzy invention: the Romex one-hole strap:

"A" is about an inch. (There's bigger ones for SEU and other heavy cable.)