Personally, I don't see the point. If I was still racing, index shifting would be absolutely necessary in order to select the right gear in a sprint without missing a shift. However, with a shimano-compatible ramped freewheel/cassette and 6 or 7 speeds, friction shifting dumps you into a gear pretty easily, with very little "in-between-gears" clunking and rattling as we used to have with 5-speed freewheels. For non-racing applications it works perfectly well. Also, with friction shifting you don't have to worry about "tune ups" and cable stretch.