Where I live, bike symbols and signs generally increase the degree of boorish territorial behavior, particularly harassment by motorists, without improving the quality of the pavement for cycling. Also, roadway use by cyclists is explicitly allowed here where shoulders exist, but this may not be the case where striped bike lanes exist.

It doesn't have to be this way. Bike lanes could be designed to perform better than wide paved shoulders, e.g. they could be better positioned at intersections than wide paved shoulders, and they could be maintained to be as good as the roadway. Bike lanes could be marked totally outside the door zone. Unfortunately, our state DOT appears disinterested in these operational issues, so we get striped bike lanes marked to the right side of RTOLs, debris accumulation that never gets swept, door zone bike lanes, etc. along with increased harassment when cycling outside of these problem areas. So by comparison, the undesignated shoulders seem preferable, since they are explicitly optional.