Hmm, must be a different experience than I've seen then. I've seen the metallic plates and mini plaques on desktops which are difficult to remove. They're usually in a location that makes at least some sense.

On laptops I haven't actually removed any in a long time, but the ones I did remove, from an Acer, from an Asus and I believe a Dell, all came off without any fuss. They were metallized/coated paper, but they weren't thick or stiff. I can't remember which stickers were removed form which machine, but I'm talking about at least two different stickers - MS-Windows and Intel Inside.

Like everyone else, I know why they're there. Like Bitt and Peter, I don't usually let them sit around on machines I have anything to do with. Heck, the ones I took off weren't even from my own machines.