I love them. I was able to find high quality organic hanging designs as fakies. These were perfectly convincing, and people with stretched ears would come up to me to talk to me about them. I am sure cheap ones look cheap but there are really good ones out there and they are a real alternative. Especially if you are like me and wanted to make sure I really wanted to stretch my ears.
The disagreement here gets to the root of why people stretch. For many people the stretching process is the reason they stretch, and they can feel frustrated when people have this "shortcut". For me I stretch for aesthetic reasons. I love hanging designs and spirals. I waited so long to make up my mind because I have a HUGE collection of rather expensive 18G regular earrings. I love variety!
Honestly if more people are interested and wearing fakies and thinking about stretching. Ear mods will gradually become more accepted. Wouldn't that be nice?