I rejected them personally as looking at their products in person I felt they were ridiculously overpriced. Given my experience with cheaper brands I might have to revise that opinion. If their support actually exists, it might be worth the money for people who don't do their own maintenance.
Exactly that, sometimes you need that extra push. It's also good just in case you forget to downshift before a stop, or don't have TIME to downshift during an emergency stop. Rather than screwing around lifting up the bike and playing with getting it to a gear low enough start comfortably from, you "when in doubt, throttle it out".
It's not something I'd rely on going any distance, but from a dead stop it's really handy in so many cases where leg-power either doesn't get the job done, or inconveniences other people on the roads.
On Winchester street here in Keene, NH we have crosswalks with "stop for pedestrians and bicycles" signs and movement sensing flashing lights. People still just blow through them doing 50mph in a 25.
But then I've had jackasses yell at me "get out of the road" next to signs that say "share the road" and/or "no bicycles on sidewalk". Usually it's the testosterone poisoned types compensating for their lack of functioning genitals with their jacked up oversized pickups with the off-road suspension and mirror finish paint that you KNOW have never taken it across anything harsher in terrain than a speed bump with a couple leaves on it, and likely never hauled anything heavier than their own tuchas.
