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I reckon people building functional bikes will have spent at least some time researching their options and finding out how other people have successfully solved the same problems. Also, people who post their own bikes here will do so either humorously or when they're happy they've done a good job.
In bike porn, overlooking the muppets who don't read the brief and do a "readers' wives" post, a lot of the posts are probably the result of spending time browsing around on sites that all serve the same niche. If that niche is "Megabucks Colnago projects" or "shitty conversions WITH COLORZ LOL", the poster will be emerging from an echochamber in which no one was applying a critical eye.
It amuses me how the 'functional not porn' thread contains a higher porn/chaff ratio than the real porn thread.