I like that it's easy to make them unidentifiable by ripping the labels off. I like that you can buy dented ones cheap if you have a taste for danger and Dinty Moore. I like that they stack. I like that they come in revoltingly massive sizes for restaurant and cafeteria use. I like the feeling you get when you have cans in your cupboard that you're somehow ready to survive a hurricane or terrorist attack, even if you only have six and they're all pears in syrup.
Cans are neat.
I remember learning in grade school about the Golden Mean, which is supposedly the porportions that most appeals to the human mind, or at least the dead Greek human mind. Anyhow, I think the same thing applies to shoeboxes. Sometimes I have to go find some nice rocks or safety pins just to obey the Will of the Shoebox. Paper is better for so many reasons it would take three trips just to get them out of the trunk. It doesn't work and you're likely to end up dead with a wad of plastic in your lungs.