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a matter of perception
Many of us old school types were introduced to a detached pistol grip by the M-16 service rifle. It seemed to work well shooting the standard rifle positions. Previously, detached pistol grips were found on a variety of sub-machine guns. Others were introduced to detached pistol grips when boat loads of inexpensive Kalashnikov-type semi-automatic rifles were imported.
Government officials decided that cheap imported "assault rifles" were a bad thing, and decided to restrict them. But, how do you distinguish a bad "assault" semi-auto rifle from a good civilian semi-auto rifle? The government answer was simple: obviously, having a detached pistol grip was a key factor in differentiating the bad from the good, and the bad must be restricted. We've all seen some strange stock modifications to make foreign detached pistol grip stocks comply with illogical government importation standards.
Inspired by government intervention, the innocent detached pistol grip became a hallmark of the bad rifle. This soon expanded to shotguns,as well. Scatterguns with full pistol grip stocks were produced for the entry level market. Any inexperienced shooter could intutively tell, just by looking at the Wal*Mart display, an "assault rifle" looking shotgun with a synthetic, detached pistol grip stock must have a lot more whoopass potential than a conventionally stocked shotgun.
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