A lot of cottered cranks seem to gave been shorter than we are mostly accustomed to nowadays.Some things seem like they're going to be a bad idea pretty early on, like me riding fixed wheel in traffic, but some if you stick at it turn out to be at least as good as whatever you had before, and you hardly notice a difference. When I test ride a small bike I can tell that I'm pedaling in smaller circles, but it doesn't feel "wrong". We are creatures of habit, and that can be hard to break, sometimes our lizard brain is driving and our prefrontal cortex is in the back seat, but you can teach an old dog new tricks.