What I heard was that on a machine that reproduced road vibration they tried different forks to find a way to make a smoother ride, they say this was the result, a straight fork. The thinking is that the bend in the blades adds a vibration in the frame after the fork hits a bump, more vibration. The straight fork just takes the bump and transmits it through the frame, less vibration. So you don't feel so beatup after 100 miles.