It first I was prepared for some serious misinformation, but to be honest, my Brooks did in fact take probably a good 500 miles to break in, and at least the first couple hundred miles of that were in fact torture.

The "why" is that after it finally breaks in it's amazing. I can't claim to have tried a very large and varied assortment of saddles, but I've ridden several conventional road bike saddles before the Brooks, and it smashes them all for long-endurance comfort. With the various discomforts we often deal with on long rides, it's great that the saddle is no longer one of them for me. If you've got non-Brooks style saddles that check that box for you, then you're all set. I'm a Brooks fanboy though. It's the saddle, though, not the company, and I've looked around at other leather saddles like Gilles Berthoud, but not tried any yet. When I've spent the time looking at these and thinking about it, I always end up just recognizing that nothing's broke and needs fixing.