research or cafe time?

Most of the gyms here are located in malls, and I visited one to do some research for an assignment...no, not to use the machines, but to see what kinds of machines they had and which were popular. The popularity of ellipticals has been really spreading lately. One never really saw many of these machines in the gyms earlier, and even if they were there, people seemed to always be going for other machines. Now these seem to be a very popular type of machine at gyms as well. Is that because they are now better designed or because they are designed to target specific areas and get faster results.

PS: Doing research like this makes it very easy for me to visit the cafe afterward to collect my thoughts and jot down my findings with a cup of coffee and a chocolate twist!