Without turning this into Pirelli bashing (After all, it was started before them), what's the opinion of us all knowing what compounds the cars are on?
During the rose tinted days of Goodyear, nobody knew what drivers were running through practice and races. In my opinion this gave an element of surprise. Remember drivers going "Long" on a hard set of tyres, (Say Nannini at Hockenheim '90, and the sudden realisation that he wasn't going to stop made a race of it....).
While the markings give something to talk about (And additional coverage for the supplier), it really allows teams to know all of the preparation in free practice, how fast and heavy cars are, how long they can go etc etc etc. We basically know the race before it's started.
Am I the only one who would rather not know and have an element of surprise or guesswork, or do people like knowing what drivers are running?