As for its purpose, it depends on how you ride and what you want to get out of it. I had a guy this week send me an email. He fitted a shift indicator to his bike and won his class at the drag strip. Helped him concentrate on the staging lights while keeping the revs pinned high, then on consistent shifting. Thats not an example a lot of us would relate to, but there are many more.
The basic concept is to bring the tacho reading into use. It takes a couple of weeks to get used to 'seeing' it without consciously looking at it. You probably have rarely looked at your current tacho, simply because its too difficult to read while riding... particularly while accelerating. But there is a reason why on a lot of sports tachos takes a dominate position on the dash, being larger than the speedo. Because it's useful in getting the most for your engine.
Most people use it for gear selection, setting the lights to the RPM range where you have torque. No lights, shift down. Lots of lights, change up. Sure, you can hear and feel the engine, but it doesn't make you consistent. If your cruising on the highway and preparing to make an overtaking maneouver, do you change down 1 or 2 gears... sometimes a difficult call if concentrating on the traffic and your not accelerating/decelerating to feel the torque available. This can be particularly important if your running a turbo or limited torque curve.
Around the twisties, particularly in unfamiliar terrority, it can keep you running in the right gear. I found this particularly useful on the track, as entering a corner with revs too high will lend to running out of rev range, needing the power to exit (or course this happens 'before' looking through the corner). Really good when looking to pass, where you may not be following your practised lines. You might need to pick a gear up or down from normal to set up for the drive past, without running out of revs at the wrong time. Some people have found with this sort of riding, the sound of the engine is mixed with others and the consistency with changing gears is reduced.
People (including myself) have used it for running an engine in, where you want to vary the revs between two ranges and limit the top RPM during run-in. Some engines are more tone neutral and don't roll off on the power before the limiter. For example, a targa rally car used one because the engine was tone neutral and they kept bouncing off the limiter unintentionally. A mod'd TLR with no roll off in torque before hitting the limit found the progressive indication a neck saver.
Some people actually set it up for use as a kind of speed regulation. Usually you set 1 or 2 lights to be on around your cruising RPM, and if you start increasing with speed without realising you get that additional light come on. For example, in my car, cruising in an 80km/hr zone, if I get to 85km/hr the second light turns on.
So what it comes down to is having a tacho you can read in your peripheral vision, but what you use it for completely depends on where and how you drive. At the professional level, you'll find progressive shift lights on the V8's to forumla 1 cars... even Valentino's bike. I'm sure some people just wouldn't want to use something else, particularly if they have no benefit to seeing a tacho that they have never used before. But there are a lot of people that have discovered a purpose that suits them. Ultimately it provides engine information and facilitates consistency.
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They were designed to eyes where they should be, and providing a tacho you can use.
</div><div align="center">If I go to hell, I will die in my FZR.</div>
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