Brandy, you might be surprised just how little intelligence goes into some "advances" on the flute. Take "traditional" scales for instance. In an attempt to correct the pitch of one note, makers altered the scale created by Boehm and made the pitch of other notes much worse. Rather than reworking the scale from the beginning as Bennett, Deveaux, etc. later did, they simply made changes, guessing at what would happen, subjecting generations of flutists to instruments with some exceptionally poor scales. Inline G flutes are another example. The originator (Louis Lot) did it to eliminate a rod and make production faster, which meant a bigger profit, but other makers started copying him without question, leading to a period of time where essentially any flute above student level had an Inline G, which caused stress and injury to some players. The most likely reason for the addition of a B foot (as I believe was mentioned above) is the ability to play music from other instrument's rep without having to transpose it, rather than some magnificently brilliant reason relating to acoustics of the instrument or the like. It's great to have gadgets on your flute, but only if you actually have a use for them.