http://www.hancockandmoore.com/product.asp?productid=1817

I've had Hancock & Moore and Elite leather furniture. One of the buttons popped off an H&M ottoman after about 5 years of use. The Elite has buttons on the seat of a loveseat, and after heavy use, no pop offs yet.

I asked this question on an upholsterer's forum that I'm a member of. Two people responded, each with about 35 years doing professional upholstery.

One said that buttons would not dissuade him.

Buttons are easy enough to reset if the button twine ever pops.

The other said that buttons are sometimes a style thing and sometimes help shape the padding for comfort and sometimes help shape convex curves that would otherwise be baggy or hard to shape.

I have small buttons on a tight boxy leather sofa seat. They pop out a little bit and snag sitters. One detached and when I had the retailer fix it (I was surprised they wanted to fix it!), it was snugged down a bit better. I decided to tighten all my buttons but haven't yet...

I would try very hard to find a sample to slide around on--we sat on an upholstered version which was fine. But on the leather they aren't as comfortable in this particular model.

They are easy enough to fix--do see that the back sides are accessible in case you do need to do a 5 minute repair--but comfort might be affected. My buttons are about half inch. I think bigger is better.

Buttons can come off but quite frankly it isn't all that common that they do and they are not that hard to fix.