I speak from personal experience . . . our former ECUSA church was built in the 60s when Episcopalians were taking a page from VCII . . . it was a "church in the round" with no choir, no organ . . . and bucket seats instead of pews. Supposedly the symbolism was "each person's individuality before God" -- but it meant you couldn't tuck your children under your wing during the service.
When the sanctuary was renovated a few years ago, they put pews in. My husband was head usher at the time, and he said it increased the capacity of the church significantly. Not double or anything like that, but maybe 30 percent. If there're little kids (or good friends) they hardly take up any space in a pew, where with the bus stop seats every kid had to have his own chair.
Exactly! Our parish has chairs, because it's a "multi-purpose facility," not a canonical church building, and we have to be able to move the chairs out for multi-purposes. It really limits the number of people who can sit down for Mass.
If we're still here when the building committee starts up for the "real church," I'm going to make sure I get on it to agitate for pews!