It sure changes the game when your fishing partner is your bikini-clad wife, all right. If I sit on the deck for whatever reason, at least there's a layer of cloth to take the sharp surface! For her it's straight skin-on-cheese-grater and I don't want to deal with the aftermath of that at all.
I was going to say "I don't go barefoot myself" because I couldn't think of why I would ever fish with no shoes on, but at the same time I remembered the feel of the deck on my feet and was struggling to imagine a reason I would have done that...then I realized that actually I've been barefoot on deck dozens of times, because although I never fish that way, when I'm commuting back and forth to my cabin, sometimes I just swim out to the boat instead of rowing. I used to rent a mooring in a convenient spot on the work side where I could leave my truck, and in the morning I'd walk down to the beach, swim out to the boat, run across to the big island, tie up, and swim to shore. I just left work clothes in my office, and showed up in trunks and a t-shirt, with my wallet, phone, and keys etc in a dry bag with a shoulder strap. I think I made everyone's "strangest coworker" list when I arrived.
So even though I would never fish without shoes on, actually, a deck that's okay to walk on in bare feet is pretty useful to me, although I wouldn't have thought so at first.
But for sure I never want to be in the position of telling a woman "yeah, maybe you need to wear more clothes if you want to be comfortable." That, sir, is a line I do not cross. Out of respect for my passengers, of course.