Heels and Toes

I'm relatively new to the world of sock knitting, so I've been spending a lot of time trying to determine the "best" way to do things. This research has turned up something fabulous: Knitters will draw blood over their preferred method of knitting heels and toes. Just take a look at the internet - it's all out there. Short row heels, hourglass heels, flap heels, cuff down, toe up, magic loop toes, short row toes, kitchener stitch toes. All of these methods work, and all of them are despised by somebody. Heels and toes. If you like one method, you have to hate all the others with a violent passion, and kill everyone who does it a different way.

Which leads to my next thought: I'm afraid I'm a sock slut. I like doing a flap heel if it fits nicely with the design. Otherwise the hourglass method (in the photo above I've used the one from the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook) looks fine...once I do it over THREE FREAKING TIMES to get it right, but that's a user error, not an inherent problem with the method. If the pattern allows or I'm just making a generic sock without using a pattern at all, I'll use the figure 8 or "magic cast on" (as featured on Knitty.com) to work from the toe up, so I don't have to graft the toe stitches together later...but if I see someone making a sock from the cuff down, I'm not going to stab her with my knitting needles.

Also, could someone explain sock blockers to me? Apparently when you finish your socks, you have the option of blocking them on wooden sock-shaped forms. But those big, flat forms have nothing to do with the shape of the human foot. My feet, like all other feet, are thick, flat and wide; they are not shaped like two-dimensional Christmas stockings. How does stretching my sock out in this way create something that is remotely comfortable to wear? Seriously, I have to know why people do this.