Hi Sean,
Welcome to the forums.
Speaking from my own experience, at the preliminary stages of a project designers tend to keep things as wide open as possible. I think I can safely say that from a spec/procurement standpoint this is generally the case in industry.
That said, once a decision has been made, or if the design team has a specific product in mind, then having content available can be helpful if renderings are required or certain product data (model numbers, color options, exact dimensions etc) needs to be part of a schedule.
In the case of a systems furniture supplier (sorry, I had to Google you to figure out what angle you might be coning at this from
) it can't hurt to have it as a 'service' to designers but be careful how you go about developing these families and have a target 'market' in mind. This will help you decide how detailed the families should be, what parameters you might include, the formatting of those parameters etc.