BB, I go along with all the others, and since I'm a natural-born sceptic I too was doubtful at first, but I've come to accept them and see the clear advantage. Are you having doubts because you find the thing difficult to install? There is a definite knack to it, you need to have everything clean for starters, a bit of dirt will stop the link snapping together. Have a bit of slack in the chain and squeeze the two plates together when they're not quite in line, they should be offset so that the two pins are closer together than normal, then when each pin is protruding through the opposite plate, slide the plates lengthwise and the pins should snap into place in the narrowed part of the slot. Once properly assembled this link is perfectly secure, I've never heard of one coming apart in normal riding (hope no-one will contradict me here!).
The problem with using a conventional rivet driver on the modern very narrow 9- and 10-speed chains, is that whilst taking apart a link (to shorten the chain) is easy, reassembling it is not so, and can easily lead to damage. Indeed it's through incorrectly joining a chain with rivet tool, that I've had it break on the ride.
Good luck!
