I'm not sure how both barbs and gifts being craps is a rebuttal to meechan's post asking how gifts aren't crap to be honest. As for the later statement, how can he defend it when you've put forward nothing to say why it is bad?
Barbs and gifts on this world, presuming they are actually remotely decent, are the best first nobles if we think in an efficiency sense. Gifted village moreso, as you are able to instruct the person gifting on how to build it, it's like the village is getting built exactly to your taste. Plus you take no losses, if you think it's a respect thing then that's ridiculous, if you hinder your own account on account of what others think you need to take a good long hard think about yourself. Furthermore the gain of ODA means you lost troops, now you will struggle to take a 3rd, 4th, 5th village more so than those with gifts.
While taking barbs and gifts is ultimately quite a boring way to play, a lot of people do it so they can build their account properly for later play.