Bassi Hog's Back

About 4 years ago, I'd have completely agreed with you. At the time, each of my bikes had to be just spot on, immaculate if you will. But then I stumbled on Rivendell and Grant's writing kinda mellowed me out and made my relationship with bikes healthier in the process. This sums up up the panda concept well:

Bike component aesthetics now is mostly about making components black
so they disappear on frames of any color, like looking at a derailer
in the dark. But especially on black frames. I don't want to feed a
silver snobbishness. I personally prefer silver. I named our
floundering, flayling component brand SILVER as a way to drive it home
that we aren't going to make anything ALL black. There may be some
black bits. though.

Black became desirable in the early 1970s, when Campagnolo introduced
pedals with black-anodized aluminum cages, to one-up its existing
all-silver steel-caged pedals. Then in the mid-late 1970s Campagnolo
introduced its SUPER RECORD rear derailer with black-anodized
knuckles, so you could tell it at a glance. The black trickled down to
cheesier parts, and in 1986 when some international monetary
shenanigans made it too costly to polish silver nicely, the parts
makers had an easy alternative in black paint.

I like "panda" parts, mixing black and silver, like we've done with
the MKS Monarch pedals, and like you can do with lots of parts.

("Panda" is the photography term for a silver body camera with a black
lens, or the other way around.)

A black front brake with a silver back, black chainrings on a silver
crank, black brake levers on silver bars, black bars on a silver stem
or the other way around. I don't like it MORE than all silver, but
sometimes as much, and it helps make the point that I'm not against
all black on bike stuff—not that it should matter what I like, but I'm
aware that sometimes it may.

We made some black Sam Hillbornes, and they look great. It looks as
good as any color. Black can be that way. I used to not like black
Shimano derailers, but I've come around. I can't look at a black
Shimano Deore rear derailer and not like it. I look at all rear
derailers differently than I used to before we started working on our
own. In a month or so we'll have a sample, after two or more years of
work. I think the sample will be a panda.

In the gigantic picture, any bicycle is good. All black parts on all
black bikes, it's still a bike. But once the bubble shrinks to a
bicycle-specific discussion, I start to say things I shouldn't.

All black parts hide the contours and details, and those can be an
attractive part of the bike.

All silver isn't always all good, but silver ages better and as it
gets a little dusty it shows even more details, which I like. Dusty
black looks like dust on black, and it's different. Do whatever you
like, but have at least a few silver parts there.