Never could figure that out, they were pretty comfortable on some bikes. The one's I preffered were the finger grip type.
The style I did not care for, but they looked decent were the solid rubber style, like on the old schwinn traveler

Pretty sure it was the weight weenie crowd that pushed them out of favor. you can't really cut a lot of weight cheaply on bikes, but switching to thin tape, less padding in the saddle, and thinner tires/wheels will give the illusion that a bike is 'better' when placed on the scale.

My favorite bike ever had padded bars and a hard plastic BMX seat, (80s type) I could ride that bike all day long without a problem. The longest single ride I ever took was on it, went from pierson, through traverse city and on to petoskey in one day. This was back when the white pine trail was still a railroad line.

Ken.

Since I type so slowly there have been some more replies....

My azuki:
http://picasaweb.google.com/merc2dog...36969541416642
has a dork disk and a chaingaurd, and I don't think it would look right if I removed them, even if the gaurd does make the BB area look 'busy'
The fuji:
http://picasaweb.google.com/merc2dog...36972277125442
has a dork disk, but since it looks like it was brought home and stuck in the garage the same day it was purchased, I'll leave it that way.
The Alan:
http://picasaweb.google.com/merc2dog...36966423428098
and the gitane:
http://picasaweb.google.com/merc2dog...36970605583842
look perfect the way they are

Ken.