Hey Martin, as a old retired airline employee, I may be slighty qualified to answer your question about "who designed those seats".
Here's your answer: The Market "designed" those seats.
For you see, once the country back in '79 decided that they wanted an airline system unincumbered with governmental oversight in order for the airline carriers to compete in more of an aggressive manner against each other and thus keep the price of those airline seats as low as possible, then the airlines eventually found it wise to pack as many people into each airplane as much as possible in order to attempt to make some moolah!
In other words...the american public for the most part didn't wish to shop, or figured they couldn't afford to shop at "Macy's" anymore, and so the "Walmartization" of the airline industry is now the norm.
We got exactly what we wanted! Isn't it wonderful when things "work out", HUH?!
(BTW....welcome aboard)
