The row arrangement is definitely unusual, but I've gotten used to juggling what's in my case, of late, depending on what game is coming up next (or where I'm heading to), which is why I'm considering upgrading to something sturdier and bigger.
And maybe it's the dealer in me, but I'm more comfortable pulling chips from racks and counting stacks at a table than moving racks around.
It might partly be because I'm never in two-table situations, so nobody is trying to move a lot of chips between tables... and partly because I'm just not doing much in the way of tourneys, with lots of buy-ins for the same amount at the same time. If you're buying in and cashing out people one at a time, racks don't seem like much help, to me.