The three I remember well looked okay–not great, but okay. A bit too pale, etc. I did notice that they did an excellent job of hiding the wounds involved in both cases. (Actually, the first one might not have had anything that would be visible anyway. But I digress.) The others I’ve been to have been closed-casket. In fact, I remember my great grandmother making a big point of it for my great grandfather’s funeral, because she was so upset by my grandmother’s open-casket viewing.
I too find the open casket thing and burial in general kind of weird. I know my parents plan on being cremated, and I plan the same (hopefully not for many, many years yet in either case). My dad and I both want to have our ashes scattered in the same place. I think our main concern is not ending up like his father, who’s been in a little cardboard box in the garage for years. Somebody really needs to do something about that.