Which proves my point - people chose fashion over function.

And, double sided discs aren't lame, it's a space saving feature. And how is a DS disc more prone to damage from someone tossing it on top of the player? More than likely, if someone is in that much of a rush or is that careless that they would put a disc down anywhere other than its case, they're not going to be careful enough to flip it over to put it label side down. They're going to put it label side up so they can see what disc it is, which means the underside is still getting damaged either way.