Originally Posted by
Velo Dog
Not necessarily so. I have two Nitto stems that give five inches of adjustment. I don't NEED five inches, but it's there if I do. I bought the first one after I started having back problems, and it was so comfortable I got one for another bike.
As to the general question, I've never seen a reason for the general move to threadless. I've ridden at least 60,000 miles with quill stems in the last 40 years, and I've never had nor heard of a problem with them. They work fine, as do threadless. But if you read this forum often, you've certainly seen many discussions of fit where a problem might be solved by moving the bars up or down. With quill stems it takes 12 seconds and it's free. With threadless, you have to flip the stem or buy a new one.
You have a point but I'm betting you don't really have 5 inches of adjustment.
I like my handlebar about 1 or 2 inches below my seat height so I use Nitto Technomic stems too. Unless, however, you have a really long steerer tube you are going to bottom out that long quill stem before you lower it 5 inches. The Nitto stem yields a higher handlebar position but, in order to adjust it back down more than an inch or so, you'll have to replace it with a shorter quill stem.
The quill stem is MUCH quicker for making fine height adjustments - I think it looks better too. If you want to make a major handlebar height adjustment, however, you need to replace the stem just the same as if you had a threadless headset.