Top out boulders at a gym - yea or nay?

Do you like them and use them when they are present? Miss them if they're not? Are they assets? Liabilities? Annoyances?

I suppose there are two main categories: free-standing and topping out to a mezzanine. Top outs on free-standing makes sense to me. Onto a mezzanine probably depends on what is happening on the mezzanine - don't want someone popping up from below right into somebody else's belay.

But from a safety standpoint, I'd think downclimb holds are the most prudent. One of my main objectives in gym climbing is to not get injured, and I picture rocking onto a high foot on the lip 15' off the deck and then a hold spins..  Maybe roped bouldering is the answer

My gym has both kinds.  I find the topouts contrived and require a lot of non climbing movements to get back down to earth.  Outside, topping out seems to be about 50% of the problem for me so maybe I should practice.  Yet the topout at the gym is always jug, mantle up onto a giant flat deck.   Lesson learned, climb outside early and often.

Top out boulders are super helpful in the gym. Outside, you top out on every boulder, so it's good to have a place to practice. At my current gym, the top out boulder has a lip so sharp that you don't even need holds too top out (that's too easy). At Earth Treks Golden, they had a really good rounded top-out that really helped me get comfortable topping out. 

Our gym got rid of top-out boulders when they changed location. The top-outs were very often the cruxes, and resulted in more than a few broken bones/sprained joints. There was even a patched hole in one of the pads where someone's tibia punched through. Part of the problem was the suboptimal flooring though. Then there was the issue with little kids camping on top of the boulder and jumping off willy nilly after climbing up the down climb.  I'm kind of glad that the top-outs are gone, even though I could definitely use the practice.

At my gym the top-outs bring me to the bar, what's not to like?

I think topouts are good to have. But I don't want to top out on another floor of the multi-floor gym and then walk through half the gym in my climbing shoes, to get back to the boulder. There;s one gym like that, and nobody but the first-time visitors top out there. The problems pretty much are set to end at the lip, and if someone wants to top out and walk back, they can.

And of course if there are topouts, route-setters have to be extra-mindful of where/how people would fall if they mess up the topout, because there is a higher chance of landing on your back or twisting weirdly and landing badly if you pop while pulling a weird heelhook, and spin on landing

The gyms I've been to have used a variety of ways to get down from a top out. The most inventive one was a fireman's pole. I thought it was really stupid, but as a gym I only visited, it was fun just that once.

The common ones are: a ladder, or series of steps, on the back side of the boulder to climb down, or the down-climbing jugs on one side of the boulder.

Top-out boulders: yay! Top-out cruxes: booooo.

Great in theory, but in practice it seems to be very difficult to make a gym top out challenging in a way that a real boulder would be - in which case it seems more like a gimmick than a real benefit.  Personally, I've not climbed anywhere where I thought the top outs were challenging in the way that I wanted them to be.

I broke two ribs topping out on a gym boulder.

I was climbing with my harness on (stupid) and while pulling up over the lip the belay loop snagged on a hold and caught me there. There I am, 15 feet in the air, stuck on the lip, hoping I don't fall backwards and unable to pull up forward. I started flailing around trying to free myself and flopped down hard on a chickenhead and "pop" two broken ribs...

Nevertheless, I still like the option of topping out on a gym boulder. 

The best top-out gym boulders are naturally rounded, and not that tall... Seattle Bouldering Project and The Spot come to mind as a couple of the only gyms I’ve been to that have challenging and realistic top-outs on free-standing boulders that aren’t particularly dangerous... Making a crux move to a giant lip 14’ up just to mantle up to a mezzanine? No thank-you...

My gym has topouts and I like them, although I don’t always go for the topout.  Better than learning how to do it outdoors where the landings are generally worse...