yeah I've seen plenty diode bars/arrays. they are a pain in the ass x 1000 to solder, you need indium solder, it's super hard to use and very $$$ plus the stuff you are soldering is microscopic. you have to hotplate everything and one oops and the whole thing is toast.
these big pre mounted arrays and stuff already on a block are easier to work on, but there's usually a reason they are so cheap and available, they are usually out of spec units or there's something wrong like a line missing or something. without a beam ananlyzer you'd never know. they'd be good for buying some of the huge crytals that show up on ebay every now and then, provided you have the time and expertise to do the alignment and make a cavity and setup the optics right.