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Gary, I think the preferred system is generally the one you have grown
up with. Whether practical or not. In the UK and may be some other
countries people indicate their weight in stones instead of kg. This
is a familiar unit for them.
1 st. = 14 lb. = 224 oz. = 3584 dr. = 6,35029318 kg
1 long ton = 160 st. = 2240 lb.
But is this really practical? For me units which differ only by some
powers of ten are really more practical, like metric ton, kg, g, mg. I
guess that's a matter of taste but more likely a matter of tradition.

IMHO, the examples you mention regarding the rail road tracks or the
electric plugs are a completely different issue. This refers to the
subject of standardisation. Standardisation has advantages for the
industry and the consumers. Problems arise when companies wont decide,
and each one is fighting for his system to become the standard. For a
company it is an important economical advantage if their system
becomes the standard. There used to be (may be still is) also a
political aspect. A country tries to protect his own industry. That's
the reason for having so many different television systems in Europe.
In my opinion this is at least partially also the reason for countries
having different electrical plugs. You mentioned the "European
connectors". I don't know whether this has really been achieved by
now. In continental Europe may be for the 2-pole connectors. Until
some years back the 3-pole connectors still differed from country to
country, and the UK connectors are still completely different. There
are also other examples. You can't buy a telephone in Germany and
expect it would work in Switzerland without opening it and changing
its wiring. This means that the ancient choices were not all so
arbitrary as you may think.

Marcel

   

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