I started knitting using straight needles (my grandmother's, in fact), and bought a bunch of dpns, but after discovering circular needles and the magic loop method, I hardly use them anymore. Short circulars are not as fiddly as dpns in my opinion, and even if you hate short circulars, the magic loop technique is still superior to dpns, easier to get an even tension too, as there are only two points in the work where the knitting separates, as opposed to three/four when you use dpns.