Hello all, wouldn´t it be a great idea to put the different spoke numbers down to British Traditionalism? Look at older bikes, from, say, the late Nineties or early last century: A great number of them had unequal spoke numbers, British, German; American, too.
So the British just kept this tradition until about 1967, and of course it just doesn´t look the better concept, to my experience it actually is. If more spokes do not make a stronger wheel, than why do tandems have 48 and more?
Regards, Toni, Osnabrueck, Germany.