I think they're cool. Why spend all of that money on polished wood and brass that nobody will appreciate once it's buried in the ground? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...we are supposed to be "recycled".
My mom always said she wants us to just bury her unsanctimoniously in the back yard. LOL. I told my family to bury me in my compost pile, just joking of course. That's where we bury all of our dead chickens. No problem if you bury it deeply enough! Our pets get buried under a special tree or bush, ultimately for fertilizer, but also to preserve their memory.
Personally, if it was legal in this country (it isn't) I always liked the idea of a Tibetan Sky Burial (that's where they cut you up into pieces and feed you to vultures) To me at least, becoming part of the food chain is as environmentally idea a disposal method as one can get.
You might be onto something @Pulsegleaner. With all the coyotes around, maybe we could volunteer our bodies for coyote bait. Friends and family could gather to shoot them. LOL LOL
We're going to be cremated. Just paid over $8,000 for my mom's funeral and she already had the plot and headstone.