> unlike TCP/UDP sockets, you don't have to be concerned about endianness because the bits never leave the machine
Why would you be concerned about endianness even if you're using TCP or UDP, if you control the protocol?
Little endian won; in 99.9% of cases there's no reason to use big endian unless you're implementing an existing protocol which explicitly mandates big endian. Doing something over the network doesn't magically make it better to use big endian, and the whole "network endian = big endian" is just silly.
Why would you be concerned about endianness even if you're using TCP or UDP, if you control the protocol?
Little endian won; in 99.9% of cases there's no reason to use big endian unless you're implementing an existing protocol which explicitly mandates big endian. Doing something over the network doesn't magically make it better to use big endian, and the whole "network endian = big endian" is just silly.