Comment by atonse

But realistically - most things are standardized. Nominal sizes. 2x4's, a sheet of plywood or drywall is 4x8 feet, etc.

(In fact, the metric equivalents of construction units are all based on feet/inches converted to a round mm because construction sizes are much older than metric)

So yes maybe you're messing with lengths, etc. 100% true. But unless you're doing fine carpentry, it doesn't matter.

The other thing is that it's a system that divides by 2 multiple times - it's not totally random. But metric only divides by 10 and 5 cleanly. You can't do a "quarter" of anything. Which is fine... but I'm saying that both systems have their advantages and disadvantages.