  We present an extensive analysis of new light and radial-velocity (RV)
curves, as well as high-quality broadening-function (BF) profiles of twelve
binary systems for which a contact configuration with large temperature
differencies between components has been reported in the literature. We find
that six systems (V1010 Oph, WZ Cyg, VV Cet, DO Cas, FS Lup, V747 Cen) have
near-contact configurations. For the remaining systems (CX Vir, FT Lup, BV Eri,
FO Hya, CN And, BX And), our solutions of the new observations once again
converge in a contact configuration with large temperature differencies between
the components. However, the bright regions discovered in the BFs for V747 Cen,
CX Vir, FT Lup, BV Eri, FO Hya, and CN And, and further attributed to hot
spots, shed new light on the physical processes taking place between the
components and imply the possibility that the contact configurations obtained
from light- and RV-curve modelling are a spurious result.
