I'll grant that words like inches, pounds and miles have more literary gravitas to them than centimetres, kilograms or kilometers, and it would be a shame to lo

I'll grant that words like inches, pounds and miles have more literary gravitas to them than centimetres, kilograms or kilometers, and it would be a shame to lose those former words completely, but arguing they make more "sense" is really pushing it. I literally have no "sense" of what a "stone" weighs, how deep a "fathom" or a "league" is, how much area a "rood" covers, or how much liquid makes up a fluid ounce, and I doubt I ever will. And they're just some of the more common units!