Tom,

What I could not articulate well, was that I started out thinking that compact offered too few options, when the reality as my (very basic) research showed, as well as your own information, is that it's not so much that compact offers better fit choices, it's that having enough different frame sizes allows better fit options, and it matters not whether the frame is compact or traditional, as long as there are closer differences between the sizes, then was once typical - and as is common in mt. bikes, of 4 sizes - Small, Medium, Large and X-Large. Clearly all the manufacturers I looked at offered better then 4 sizes and that makes all the difference for avg. riders. The key is to have approx. (and as minimum) 2cm differences in effective TT length in order to avoid stems that are too long or too short and that's what has developed. S/M/L/XL didn't offer that.

I personally feel that stand-over height on a road bike is not a particularly useful or necessary thing. The avg. rider tends to un-clip, lean to one side and put a foot down - which they have to do in order to put a foot on the pavement in any case. Being able to stand over the bike while the bike is dead upright is not something most people need to worry about. Mt. bikes are another story and you don't want to be slamming the soft spots on a TT. Moot point in any case as in a lot of cases with full suspension, the suspension design drives the TT design.

So my take is that there is no advantage to compact, but there is nothing lost either. Preference as to look is up to the consumer.

Steve B.