Yeah, I think pop up headlights are cool, with the coolest being the vacuum powered ones like on the old Corvettes.
Like I wrote to SES1066 in post #51, I think pop ups can make or break a design. While I know it's highly subjective, I think the most aesthetically beautiful car ever was the Jaguar E-Type, which is beautiful with the way the round, traditional headlights are sculpted into the design. As I noted, other cars would not be what they are without pop ups.
I think one of the worst design fails ever are the lights on the Porsche 928, which looks like a dead walleye with the lights down, and looks even worse with them popped up.