Yes, I agree. The question is at what point does a comfort/upright style bike become less of an advantage and more of a disadvantage. I don't know where that point is and it probably varies per person. What I do know that in my office of about 45 people, only 2 or 3 live within 3 miles. One of them could just as easily walk.

If you go out to 10 miles, now you've got a pool of 14 potential commuters. I fall within this group and so do all the other people who commute with any regularity.

As somebody else mentioned, for me speed is part of function. I didn't intentionally move so close to work so that I could spend an hour and a half on the road each day. A 40 minute one way commute is about the limit for me and I'd much rather keep it under 30. I'm guessing I'm not the only one and that time spent on the commute is a barrier that keeps a significant amount of people off a bike.

A criteria the OP used for bike selection was whether or not the bike came with fenders. I don't really have a problem with the criteria and it did yield one road bike suitable for longer commutes (the Raleigh). It's too bad that that criteria didn't yield a wider variety of bike styles to cover a wider variety of commutes.