Originally Posted by
cooker
I thought I read somewhere that the point of lugs was they allowed lower temperature joining - brazing instead of welding - so they put less heat stress on the tubes, and welding came to the fore when tubes began to become available that could tolerate the heat.
More like...Grant doesn't have the technology to eliminate lugs and he chooses heavier (yield strength/specific gravity) and more garden variety grades of Chromoly because he can make a better profit and the guys who guy bikes from him don't know the difference and think lugs are "quaint".