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Notes -
Out of interest, I took a look at the list of failed SCOTUS nominations. Only 8 since 1900:
So of the seven substantive rejections, at most two (Miers, and probably Fortas) were on personal grounds. The other five were all an ideologically coherent bloc in the Senate opposed to the President, rejecting the nominee based on their political views. The change is that the ideological line-up in the Senate now matches the partisan one in a way it historically didn't.
Given that only the Bork and Garland rejections became scandals, I think the mos maiorum that people want to exist (but doesn't, given that there was no political price in either case) is "Party-line rejection of the President's SCOTUS nomination by a Senate majority of the other party is inappropriate." Unfortunately, given increased ideological coherence and party discipline in the modern Senate, this would cash out as "the President can nominate anyone he wants as long as they are broadly acceptable to the President's own party", and would be a bad rule on that basis.
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