Depending on how you do it, slammed (threadless) stems can looks pretty sweet. Comfortable or not, it's like concept cars--exaggerated proportions in search of the visual 'thrust' that the person or designer is going for. I don't find a slammed quill stem to be attractive as the quill stem form factor is to make a "7" and not a single line. Low-set quills are fine, and all of us have a height range that brings about our idea of an ideal "rise-to-run" proportion. This generally gets trickier with tall and short frames, for various reasons.

In the case of my '15 CAAD10 Black, Inc. Disc, the steerer was already cut super low. The saddle to bar drop is the most extreme of my fleet, but hey, horizontal emphasis = speedy looking. I have tan wall 28mm tires (same size as these Schwalbs) on this now, and normally I'm not one for the murdered out look (lol, as I have three bikes with largely this aesthetic, well, they're at least not all matte black everything--that's lame), but man, this thing looks hot.



Stem conversion, with only a 'slammed' look being visually acceptable given the bike's race geometry and purpose. Also hot.