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Technically, this rule is designed to prevent cheating, not to give your unattentive weak-tight butt an excuse to see everyone's cards. You do this a few times in my home game and you'll be picking up your teeth.

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The reason NOT to show your cards is to deprive others at the table of information - otherwise, you'd just show at every single showdown. (Note the word Show in showdown [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ).

If I want to know what they had when they called me on the flop, or on the turn - I've a perfectly valid right to that info. Obviously at the end of the hand, they didnt' have a real hand - but I may want to know whether he was chasing a flush or bluffing... In those cases, I've paid to see his hand - and that's why a casino will never penalize me for asking to see it.

I don't think there's any bad form at all in a player who's in a hand at the end asking to see what someone else brought to a showdown - and then decided not to show.