Aside from method/field visibility, are there any big issues with writing a class that extends something from another package?

Thanks.

Nope, the only issue is the organisation of your code. I regularly separate type from implementation by using different type and impl packages. Never encountered problems with this approach. Furthermore, it's relatively common if you use a 3rd party frameworks.

HTH
sv

Classes which are not defined public can't be accessed from outside the package.
This can be an issue if you would have to override a class out of a library where the libraries' author did not think of that scenario.

You can use packages to control class access in your own code, too. If you know that a certain class is and should only be used by another class in the same package you can define it non-public

package foo;

class Bar
{
  ...
}

to forbid access from another package.