Probably some of those guns would have been attractive in my youth. But even after some companies started making guns that I considered safe to carry in a pocket (like Seecamps), I made a decision, perhaps a wrong one, that I wasn't going to carry a gun I couldn't shoot accurately with. That put J frames at the lower limit, although I did once have a Beretta .25 that I shot fairly well.

Anyway, between having Chiefs and such, and dressing a little differently, I found that I could carry a J without a jacket. Now, there is not much motivation to look for a flat gun that works all the time, since the J-frame guns do the job well enough.

More power to anyone who finds a reliable autoloader that shoots a decent cartridge accurately, but I don't need anything better than a J-frame .38 Special just yet.