Those are "lowercase" or "oldstyle" numbers; they are built to go with mostly-lowercase, running text. I think they look odd with sans serif fonts and anywhere outside of blocks of text, but completely and totally wonderful otherwise.
I love old-style numbers.
Why should letters get all the ascender & descender fun! :P
Agree completely!
I think they are artistically wonderful!
It all depends how you perceive things, isn't it