Yes on the aethetics. My wife walked by me the other night while I was on the computer and looked at my screen to see what I was so interested in. I was paging through pictures of Salsa Vayas! She just rolled her eyes.

I went out later that night and removed the rear rack, replaced my front low-rider rack, and washed it up for the commute to work the next day. I like changing it up from time to time (that's why I keep a lot of my older bike parts as opposed to seling them - never know when I will get in the mood to change the bike around).

I think I do this because it is the one thing in my life that I can control