..and if you are doing a triathlon, you are not riding in bike shorts. Not unless you want to cary about 15 pounds of water in your bike chamois...
the extra padding helps with the lack of what tri shorts provide.
I don't get it. Unless you doing the ironman, the bike portion isn't that long. Should comfort really matter that much in a race of less than an hour. In training, unless you are doing blocks, you can still wear bike shorts.
My chamois are barely padded at all and my saddle, a brooks, has zero padding.