Yeah I got into beef with my second cousin cause she was talking greasy about my mother's decision to have my father cremated. It wasn't so much the cost as it was the stress of seeing him laid out in the casket. I knew that would have been really hard on her. Especially considering he had been in the hospital for almost two months. A lot of times the medicines that are still in the body and the stuff the undertakers use to prepare the body don't mix and the deceased doesn't quite look like themselves, which adds a whole new level of stress.
It's funny what you mentioned at first, though. My mother is from a small town in Eastern NC, and one time we went back for a funeral, she ran into an old family friend. This woman actually talked about another funeral that was taking place the next day, and she said she was going "to see if she knew anyone", like it was a social event or something.