Why do we line Drawers?

For those of you who don't know, I'm in the process of getting a new kitchen. At this point, it's mostly complete. The cabinets are in, the electrical is mostly done, and the plumber only has to hook up the sink and the dishwasher. Tomorrow the granite guy will be coming to make a template for my counter tops (read: another 7-10 days without counters, a cook top or my sink. Do you want to know how useful a kitchen is without a sink or counters? It's about as useful as a desktop computer in a house without electricity! But I digress...) The cabinets are installed and it's time to fill them. My kitchen stuff currently resides in my living room, guest room, bedroom, bathroom, the landing of my stairs, and my basement. Actually, I think the hedgehog room is the only room that is completely kitchen free (and that's only because I am subject to USDA surprise inspections and they would probably frown at me having pots, pans, and random food stuff in the hedgie bins). You really have no idea how much kitchen stuff you've accumulated until you have to temporarily re-home it (while keeping all other rooms of your house useable).Currently I'm lining the drawers and shelves. I've chosen a non-skid rubber-type liner that looks  similar to a non-skid carpet pad. I based the choice purely on the fact that I hate working with contact paper. I may end up having to use flat thumb tacks to keep it down, but that's still better then getting contact paper stuck to your arm hairs!

So I'm lining the lining away and I start to wonder to myself 'Why exactly do we line shelves and drawers?' Is it because we don't want the bottoms to get scratches? Because I would think that you would wait until they got scratched and then line them to hide the scratches. And who's looking at the bottom of my drawers anyway? I expect random hedgehog inspections, but the day someone comes to inspect my cabinet bottoms is the day I retire and move to the top of MT. St. Helen's!

Do we line them so things won't slide around? If that's the case, I understand lining the drawers, but why line shelves? Things should not slide off shelves! I paid a nice sum of money to my cabinet installer and if I find out my shelves are angled I'm gonna be ticked! And if it is to stop sliding, then explain to me why a lot of people use contact paper? That's certainly not going to halt a herd of dishes headed for the floor!

I just don't get it. All I know is that when I moved into my last house and my parents came to visit, one of the first things my mom did was find stuff to line the shelves (I think we used contact paper). So if mom says that shelves need to be lined, then dang it the shelves will get lined. After all, mom wouldn't steer me wrong........would she?

Ok, back to putting soup on shelves........