not sure if this has been pointed out, or that it really needs to continued, but alot of fixies are old trash find conversions, where the paint/decals are too jacked to save, so they just get spray paint make overs. since this is the 'norm' for probably half the bikes that you see, it creats a sort of design model that alot of people wind up associating fixies with (even before they own one themselves). when they go to build their own, a stripped down frame is probably what they envisioned the whole time. i know all the cats i knew who were riding them back in 99/00 (when i was first introduced) all had debadged frames, so to me it just made sense to strip mine when i got it.