Aestheticly, I too prefer catenary--blame my childhood experience of Illinois Central Electric Suburban service in my Granddads 'hood on the South Side AND our trips on the majestic South Shore Line zipping across the Dunes in the lovely orange and maroon cars! As to catenary problems, when I went to work in the 60's the IC got me to work late twice in a year and a half--onc a bitter day where indeed there were overhead issues--copper shrinks below freezing, then snaps. Even then only one track was OOS that morning.