Here in the Jacksonville Florida area, there aren't many homes with gutters. I'm from Virginia and just about every house had them. I was amazed, because the homes with wood siding tend to have the most wood rot at the bottom from the water hitting the ground and splashing into it. 

You're right, they need to be cleaned out frequently! 

Pam,

You are absolutely right about that, the rot at ground level when gutters are missing and splashing happens.

Steve, why didn't you also comment about the wood gutters.  Nice looking, generally to small to handle the volume of water, and generally rotten or about to rot.  Good points otherwise.  As you know, one of the major sources of water in crawlspaces is clogged gutters.

If you will read the post again, it said: most of these are ancient, rotten or leaking. As for capacity, and their ability to handle water, that depends a lot on what they are draining. If it is a small garage roof they could be fine capacity-wise but, age wise, they probably have all the problems mentioned. As for water in the crawl space, that is true along with no gutters and downspouts that dump next to the foundation.