Fair enough. Why do you like the Imperial System then? What is so wrong with the metric system?
I think the "difficulty" issue of measurement systems is moot -- the ability to learn a system is dependent on the learner, not the system itself. If someone is better at dividing by 12 than by 10, that's not the system of measurement's fault. It's the same as learning languages -- I think Japanese is insanely easy as a language to learn, but found Italian very difficult; many people would disagree with me on that. But neither of us would be wrong, we just learn differently and/or are better at different things.
So I think any argument for either system of measurement that is based on "difficulty" is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the relative merits of the system, just the merits of the users.
So, when you remove the users from the equation, and try to appreciate each system in a vacuum, it becomes a subjective discussion about what any one person finds pleasing, right?
I think the Imperial System is much, much more regal, for example. Metric feels very pedestrian and bland. If measurement systems were ice cream, Imperial is chocolate and Metric is cardboard. Imperial presents the more interesting set of vocabulary, with words that fit oddly in the mouth like "quart" and "pint" (which, by the way, is how we measure ice cream). Only in the imperial can you see for
leagues and leagues or lose yourself in the countless
fathoms of the deep ocean. In Imperial you can have a
gill of water, a
rood of forestland, or
drachm of poison.
Really, if King Lear had been poisoned by a daughter, would you rather hear that she had slipped a drachm of poison in his wine, or that...
As the old king clutched his chest, he looked around and saw Goneril grinning maniacally...she had slipped 3.5516328125 ml of poison in his wine...