Not sure really why the aversion to it. I think somewhere along the line where I was doing late night research prior to picking up the new bike, I'd picked up on some arguments online against the shims.

Anyway, i went with Atom Lab Cro-Mo bars with a 3" rise and 25.4mm clamping area..quite reasonably priced at £35 and the quality of their cro-mo bars looks good and is apparently ok for street jumps or something. Also went with a short 50mm Thomson Elite MTB stem which should suit more aggressive riding as well as provide a more upright riding style compared to the 100mm stem I got as stock.

Maybe someday I'll look into getting a quality 25.4mm cro-mo bar if a suitable one ever comes on the market. One issue is the couple of suitable 25.4mm crmo BMX bars I did see had far too high a rise (7.75" or 8.75") whereas I was after something with 5" rise max.

Cheers anyway, can't wait to install the new stem and bars when they arrive, hopefully this weekend