On an embedded system we use global variables often to keep dynamic memory consumption on heap and stack low. But global variables are also considered bad programming practice if they aren't used in a global sense, i.e. they are used only inside one or two functions.

So I really want to make use of the possibilites to protect my code from myself. Of course, the instantiation mechanism of c++ is to avoid on an embedded system with low resources, like an arduino. So I write classes with static members (and member functions) only. Many of the libraries shipped with arduino seem to work this way, too.

I'm curious if there's a single drawback of moving static variables or even const arrays (designed for deposit in progmem) from global namespace to a class namespace and making them private?

I'm primarily interested in drawbacks arising from the combination of OOP with the arduino platform (using an arduino uno) with avr-gcc.