While you are able to place them with Pressure Tube + Redstone Block Strip it is impossible with Block Placers.
This makes certain applications impossible as demonstrated in this video:
https://youtu.be/a6U0Qxc3erU?t=24m30s (Look at 24:30 to see the mechanism)

I notice you can place Pressure Tubes inside of Frames using Block Placers.
My suggestion is to craft the Redstone Block Strip + Pressure Tube to receive a Redstone Pressure Tube item that you could then use in a Block Placer like a normal Pressure Tube.

If you are worried about inventory space by having multiple types of Pressure Tubes you could keep the old behavior on top of this and let the player decide.

Might not be a bad idea.

Despite this being 3 years old I figured I would note for anyone else who stumbled on here looking for an answer like I did, you can get around this with something like the eu2 mechanical user.