In real life sometimes objects don't look traditional or fit a purely utilitarian model. In Second Life, though, people seem to be more comfortable with objects that look to be obviously what they are intended to be. A chair is a chair - a recognisable, traditional chair, usually. In real life a chaise longue might be an organic oddball shape, and do double duty as a design object of interest.

In Second Life it would be chaise-longue-shaped. I understand the reason - it's true that in a place where anything is possible, clues of texture, size, placement, and so on are not available or perhaps just not as easily understood. However, I see lots of really rather ugly chairs in SL that seem to be a failure of imagination. Not just chairs - one wonders why some of the boring RL objects unnecessary in SL are reproduced so faithfully.

Especially since the advent of sculpties I've seen a lot of what I consider yucky things that someone spent a lot of time bringing forth into our virtual world. I have no clue why - but I've seen things of K-mart design quality that are lauded because they were difficult to make.

I think the use of sculpties has to get better, but right now it's pretty spotty. The use for organic shapes like rocks, water, trees is an important addition, but alas it is at the cost of K-martification in other areas.

One thing about classic prims - it is always a joy to see how someone has used the shapes to build something.