That's a good response!
I think the situation touches on one of the fundamental reasons why vaping is a slow take for some people. It's weird that people concern themselves with what something like smoking, or for that matter vaping, looks like, but they do and it can be a hangup for a while. I remember two years ago that I was put off by the larger (more powerful) mods, and thought I wanted something that looked like a real cigarette. I thought about it and realized how silly that was. The whole point was that I was trying to get away from cigarettes... replacing it with a similar aesthetic doesn't actually make sense, but it is a very important baby step for some people. When I talk with people about vaping I remember that I am representative of this experience to people, and being mindful of that odd quirk can be helpful.
I had to experiment to be able to clearly define what I want from my experience. I had to define the reason I was using it in the first place (I want a system that delivers nicotine to my system with as few health risks as possible, and I want it to taste good) and then I had to define how I want the system to work (I want something that has a very low chance of failure and requires few proprietary replacement parts). I use a Puresmoker V3 and I get odd looks at first, then eventually I get lots of questions as people get more interested. It doesn't surprise me anymore that one of the first few comments is in reference to it looking or feeling odd.