Fun (?) anecdote - metric apparently has been used in US engineering for quite a while; a petrolhead buddy of mine was puzzled as to all the fractions used on the drawings of his (I think) Chrysler Hemi V8 from the fifties - on a hunch, we converted a few to metric. Bingo.
(Just making up a number here) 3.937" stroke? Why on Earth... Ah. 100.0mm. That's why.
Another anecdote - In structural engineering, US units are way easier to work with, and even in Canada, about 90% the buildings I work on use kips, ft, ksi, etc.
They aren't easier to work with for any reason other than that sizes of standard components (pipes, beams, etc) are sized conveniently in US units and have US units printed on the spec sheets.
If you go overseas outside of North America, you find that the sizes of everyday objects are conveniently sized in metric, and building codes and standards and material strengths and densities are specified in SI units, and suddenly working with the metric system in those industries is easy and convenient.
Do you deal with building insulation? How would you interpret a material spec of "1 BTU ft/(in^2 hr °F)"? I had to work with these units in the US and it was not at all convenient.
I don't deal with building envelope. Its not surprising or unexpected that there are differing opinions among various professions on which set of units are more convenient.
In Canada, all our building code, material design codes, etc are in metric, and yet we are still using US units for day to day design.
What lengths and widths of wood can you buy from the lumberyard?
What is the common width and thickness of drywall sheet you can buy and the hardware store? What door sizes are available? What size of screws are cheaply available in Canada?
I think these factors are far more likely to affect what unit of measure is commonly used in construction, rather than any intrinsic merit of the measurement system. If you were shopping at a Japanese or German hardware store, you'd probably suddenly find all of those 12 foot dimensions quite frustrating and not be at all surprised to find the hard-hat-wearing locals happily using the metric system for the same tasks.
In Australia, we use metric. On the odd occasion, you will find both imperial and metric depending on the application. Our wood sizes are metric, nuts and bolts can be either, nails metric, screws metric, tape measures generally have both imperial and metric, pipes are generally metric though you can get imperial if needed.
I have been using metric since the seventies. About the only things I still use imperial for are people's height and the length of fish (for undersize/oversize determination). In regards to woodworking, I much prefer metric over imperial and the millimetre over just about all other base units.
(Just making up a number here) 3.937" stroke? Why on Earth... Ah. 100.0mm. That's why.