I didn't read the thread and only have a minute or so...In general I respond much better to a rod that is well done and looks cool. Stuff that's kind of hacked together with baling wire and spit generally turns me off, as do well-built rods that are out of proportion or otherwise ugly. So I'm a '70s traditionalist.

Having said that, I stopped in Salida, CO one night in the middle of a trip and some dude drove up in a hacked-up early '30s something now looking like a roadster, with a chevy 6 with 2 carbs and dual exhaust and a lift-off roof and I couldn't stop looking at it. It sounded kind of gruff, it didn't have a square inch of identifiable paint anywhere, and it was obviously freshly built but out of car parts, not farm implement parts. To get in you lifted the top and stepped in over the side. You just know it'll get driven for three or four years and then go back beside the barn or under a rotting tarp somewhere. For a summer ride it was just right.
I cannot see that as much more than a passing fad.
R.