I think these are the things I like about survivor condition bikes. Things that got tossed frequently surviving on the bike for 40 years is kind of neat to me.

This makes sense to me. Many old catalogs I've seen have bikes with and without safety levers, I don't see how some bikes could be sold with them yet others not. However it is also in line with the feeling many have with the quality tier associated with them.

I have some Dia-Compe safety levers on one of my bikes and adjusted properly the work well enough. But the cheap ten speeds I had as a kid from the hardware and department stores had levers that pretty much flopped around like chickens with their heads cut off.