The club seats on Southwest at the front of the cabin were always popular with families, and the ones at the exit row sucked. I'd rather look at the back of someone's head than their face, particularly given my ability to be seated next to unattractive people.
The Mythbuster episode here in the states that I saw on air carrier safety was to test the claim that one has a better chance of being killed in the brace position in an accident than sitting normally in your seat, and that the airlines adopt this practice to limit the payouts in the event of an accident. The latter part of the theory proved intriguing, but through their experiments they showed that the brace position was indeed safer. Interesting episode, but not nearly as funny as the one where they tested the theory that driving while talking on a cell phone was as big of an impairment as driving while just below the legal limits of intoxication. (They couldn't reach that limit, or legally, they would not be able to do the test).