mustad,
I've never really understood the "tail fetish" here in the US myself. How about pointing dogs that have "no tail" (cropped)? I have never- never evereven once seen a picture of a guy kneeling down by his long tail pointer that wasn't holding the dog's tail up. Almost like he is stroking the tail --- almost pornographic

Some say that it's easier to see a 'high noon' tail in deep grass/weeds (again what about the short tail dogs?).
I agree that it's probably more pleasing to the human eye to see an upright tail --- but does it really put more birds on the table? It's nice to the human eye to see a tripod point too, but many folks think that tripod is just one step closer to breaking than a quad point, and a three legged point doesn't put more birds on the table either. To quite a few people, style is more important than actual hunting.

Casey usually points with a 9 O'clock tail.............But the more hot and tired he gets, the lower his tail goes.

In this first pic, it was a nice cool morning and we were only doing "pointing training" so he was full of energy and cool.
In the second pic, he had just completed 10 LONG land marked retrieves and 2 LONG blind retrieves. It was 93 degrees -- he was hot and tired (he needed a 10 minute break and a swim). He was panting hard while we were quartering, but as soon as he goes on point, the mouth goes shut and he nearly quits breathing.