Aluminium straight forks on a hybrid? Good or bad?

[mikbnay]

I've found a nice aluminium hybrid for a bit of touring (50 road miles a day) and a bit of offroad - but it's got straight forks, which I've only seen on road racers. Do these make for a more uncomfortable ride? I read that curved forks absorbed some of the bumps. As far as I can gather, opinion seems to be divided:

-straight forks look cool
-straight forks save manufacturing costs
-straight forks give more responsive steering or something (?)
-straight forks make no discernible difference to comfort
- aluminium behaves differently to steel in some way or other

I've been riding a MTB with CroMoly forks for years. Am I going to be any worse off with straight aluminium forks?

[dabac]

.....
-straight forks give more responsive steering or something (?)Besides head tube angle, an important thing for steering response is how far ahead of the pivot point the wheel is located. On a regular (curved) fork this is easily seen by looking at the size of the curve. On a fork with straight prongs this offset is created by setting the prongs of the fork at an angle in the crown. Straight or curved doesn't matter (for steering response), the offset does. I've never seen a bike without offset, regardless of design otherwise.

.....
- aluminium behaves differently to steel in some way or other
Depending on design (thickness, cross section etc) aluminium can be made to behave very similar to steel. The most crucial bit is that aluminium tends to be more prone to metal fatigue than steel, which might be important in a later stage (usually very much later though...)