I'm with you Keep, especially where style impedes function, an extreme example cars, but good styling has benifits. Rounded corners and edges make the instrument less likely to suffer damage and a curved shape, so long as not taken to the extreme, can make an instrument easier to handle, easier to clean, and easier to put in a pocket or case.
My old digital multimeter, although still performing well, is fine for bench work but, because of its square edges, is not so good in the field.
One of the nicests instruments was the traditional moving coil Avo8 multimeter- at one time, if you didn't have one you were not allowed in polite company. Nice as they were though, they were easily damaged, mostly because of the Bakalite case, but partly because of the square corners. They were also bad to handle due to the boxy shape. There were much better and cheaper multimeters at the time but, like Fluke now, Avo were the gold standard. I expect you had an equivalent gold standard in the US, Tailor perhaps?
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