drilled lugs

Interesting. I didn’t know that. Cheers.

They also have shoulderless springbars, so there wouldn't be anything to grab if you could get a spring bar too in there.

Never understood why so many people love drilled lugs. They're not really any easier for changing straps. And if you're not careful you scratch the side of the lugs which really sucks, vs the back of the lugs which is no big deal.

Don't use a springbar tool, use a cocktail stick 😉👍🏻

I find it noticeably easier, but you could call that me being bad at removing them the other way. Plus, I think shoulderless springbars are a bit stronger and some straps have no access to the bars.

Good point about some straps not having access. Or if the fit is super tight it can be hard to remove.

With drilled lugs you have, normally, both ways to remove straps and bracelets. Without drilled lugs you need a special tool and can only remove one way. You also avoid damaging tight leather straps. You can use almost anything pointy to remove the strap in any situation and, as said, use shoulderless spring bars that you can't use on watches without drilled lugs. Of course you may scratch the side, but that's unlikely to happen unless you have not care at all. On the other hand the watches I now own with drilled lugs do have hardened cases, so that's not any concern.

and there is a special tool with wooden tips required or at least made for inserting the bracelet without messing up the back of the lugs.

The strength argument is probably valid because the ends are (or can be) longer, but it is less beneficial when there is a tight fitted end link because the spring bar cannot bend. I do not understand why bracelets do this. The risk of putting a shoulderless bar or a closed end link as above on a non-lughole watch by accident 😮 is just too high for the reward.

I think the failure point is usually due to the bending splitting the cylinder or crumpling it in the center with soft straps. The shear scenario, where the cylinder can't bend, is the stronger scenario, I think. The advantage the shoulderless bars have there is that the cylinder is pretty much the full lug width. The further the lug is from the cylinder, the more leverage is applied when trying to rip the spring loaded bar out of the cylinder. If you put a steel bar in a pipe and tried to pry it sideways to break the pipe, the further away from the pipe opening you grab the bar, the easier it will be to split the pipe open.

i see you thought about this much more than I did. The failure will indeed occur in the middle based on one "experiment" (don't ask) I did in the past. But it needs to bend further if the ends are longer although once it starts bending it's done anyway I suppose. You are very likely correct in what you say, but I can't see too much added value, either way.

Perhaps on watches where that is of such concern a bar just isn'tgoing to cut it and screws are in order anyway?

I can only tell you that the only shoulderless bars I ever had went straight in the bin out of fear I might install them somewhere else by accident 😉

That's the "nice", "customer-friendly" company called Rolex for you ;)