You are right, the baseboards aren't works of art, but they were manufactured in Westfield at Mestek, and sold under the Sterling brand. They were $15 per foot and I installed 130 feet of them, so they weren't cheap, about $2,000. I think I spent that much again on copper pipe and fittings. This was 10 years ago when copper was cheaper then now.
What they are is comfortable. And when the heating season is 210+ days long, that matters.
Before I ditched the forced air system in my current house, this was my reality. It was "fine" while the blower was running, but as soon as the heat cycle was over, right back to being cold and uncomfortable. That system was noisy too, you needed to turn the TV volume up while it was running. I can't place all the blame on the forced air system, my house is a split and was originally built with electric heat, the forced air system was added in in the mid 1980s, and they didn't size it correctly or get the required returns in the right places. It was a disaster, and I'm glad it finally failed because what I have now is 1000% better.
The two best features of my baseboards are they are completely silent and provide constant heat without cycling. The system circulates continuously providing warm water to the baseboards at a temperature inversely proportional to the exterior temperature using a modulating boiler and a buffer tank. The heat put out by the radiator matches the heat lost by the house, keeping the house at a constant 68-69F without cycling.
While it is convenient, it can be a compromise in comfort. In the winter, most of the heat load is in the bottom of the building, in the summer, most of the cooling load is at the top. If you have proper ductwork that can accommodate the differences in heating and cooling loads between seasons that helps, but as our collective experiences indicate, forced air systems are prone to improper duct design and installation.