Names and faces to bikes

Clutching slippery bars will make your hands and forearms a lot more tired a lot more quickly. Plus in really wet weather they are really slippery, even with gloves, as you note. Putting tape on the bars means that you can have a secure grip without clutching so hard.

You tend to notice the difference over any real distance, or during hard sprints.

Agreed - I've always been under the impression that it's not that difficult riding tapeless bars in their proper setting (i.e. a velodrome) since the majority are indoors and it doesn't tend to rain in there. End of slippery problem. Take them on the street and you're just asking for trouble. Maybe you really, really want to replicate that Keirin look, but how about letting common sense get a look in every once in a while?

A suggestion - stop talking about ENI as if she's not in the room?

Point taken...