Base 10 is much easier to use, but it requires converting a lot of old, established measurements into that formula. The English weren’t the only ones that had a base 12 formula; it’s actually founded on the proportions of the human body, starting with the foot....yes that same foot that’s under the ankle. However, having an easily divisible standard is better.
And this is confusing. I go to Europe a lot so I’ve worked it out and can do it fairly quickly mentally - at least a good approximation. So maybe it should be the official measurement internationally, but they certainly shouldn’t criminalize deviation from it (which I think the EU does one).
IIRC, sometime in the late 1800s, metric DID become the international unit. The USA was really slow at adopting it and it still isn’t in full force.
I was just explaining this to Mrs. Thinking a couple days ago. The advantage of a highly composite number (composite being the opposite of prime) is that you can evenly divide it many different ways. You can evenly divide a 12-inch foot into 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 pieces without getting into fractional inches. Something in base 10, like a centimeter, you can divide by 2, 5 or 10 and you’re done. Thus 12 inches, 60 minute hours, 24 hour days, etc. Some researchers even claim that the absolute size of Imperial units like inches feet, pounds and so on, are more intuitive for humans. No idea if that one is true or not.