I love numeric keypads. I don't have to type in big chunks of numbers very often (OCR and GPIB go a long way) but when I do, numeric pads make me hate life a lot less.
I have a custom keyboard I designed, and I configured it so that the tilde key turns the right-hand side into a numpad (ie the yuiohjkl etc keys). It's great, no need for extra unused buttons and very convenient to use (as the left hand is typically not used when typing on the num pad).
I used to have a Sony laptop like this, where NumLock turned the uiojkl keys into 456123, so you could use them (along with 789 above them) as a number pad. It was a clever design and I wish more laptops offered it.
I thought almost all laptop before 2010 is like this though. It was normal back in the day.
I've never been able to get comparable ergonomics out of these. Maybe I just haven't been forced to use them enough -- or maybe the increased travel distance really does matter. I could see it going either way.