I remember when reading "Napoleon: A Life" by Andrew Roberts, Napoleon wasn't a big fan of the base-10 metric system, but he figured it would be the best way to break with the hundreds of different measuring systems in place in France at the time, and enforce an empire-wide standard.

I much prefer base-12 or base-16 systems, especially when measuring and hanging drywall!

On the other hand, the British waited way to long (until 1971) to decimal-ize their currency. Before that the pound was made up of 240 pence.