I agree. Certainly meters being divisible by 10 makes it better suited for modern engineering since it makes the mental math so much easier. Also its nice how 1gr of water is 1ml of water (this benefit only works for water, but well water is common in many things so it is still very useful).

However, as an aside, the 12-based system (inches) or 16-based system (oz) was better in the time before marked measuring sticks were widespread. This was because 12 or 16 was divisible by more factors than 10 based approach.

You need to cut either a 1ft or 10cm board into thirds....in 12-based its simple. In 10-based it becomes more complicated without having a marked measuring stick (ie 4 inches vs 3.33cm).

Its funny how something as simple as "prevalence of marked measuring sticks" could influence the usefulness of meters vs feet as a measurement units.

In the old days, a workman would just have a length of string that was known as 1ft long. By folding the string multiple times, they could generate the various sub-units needed. This is harder to do with a 1m length of string since you quickly fall into needing decimals.

I'd say so, but only for the unit conversions. Those don't really get used with temperature and scientists use Kelvin more often anyway, since it's the more physically meaningful value.