Traditional or no, for us Men of Substance who carry moderate to considerable guts/pottbellies around the use of sporran hangers is more of a necessity than a variance from tradition. If you have any size gut hanging below the typically high position of a kilt belt, your sporran on a standard sporran strap or chain will tend to wander south below the gut and bunch up and wrinkle your apron big time between your sporran and your belt---the bigger the gut, the more this happens. I agree that sporran hangers do tend to pull down on your belt, requiring you to occasionally readjust, but not nearly so frequently as with a sporran chain or strap.

I envy those of you who can wear a standard chain or strap because of this, and I actually try to reduce the weight of my sporran by adding a sidecar---a small belt pouch-- to the side of my belt to carry some of the more frequently used and often heavier items like keys, change, cash, credit card. Others have used devices on the underside of the belt to keep it from slipping down as easily---no-slip belts and grippy rubber dots and such.

One other problem of sporran hangers is when one dons a dress coatee and waistcoat and should not be wearing a belt buckle with the waistcoat becasue of the disarray it causes when the two meet and bulges and ruffles occur at one's midriff---how is one to hang sporran hangers off a belt when one cannot wear a belt? I am working on a novel solution to that problem using sporran hangers made of money clips attached to short chains and sporran clips, such that the money clips attach to the top of your kilt apron directly and the sporran hangs from them----this still has the side effect of pulling down on the front apron of one's kilt disproportionately, unfortunately, but at least allows you to get away with not wearing a belt. An alternative I have used on occasions like this was to actually wear a belt with a low profile buckle, attach the sporran hangers to one side of the belt, the turn the belt 90 degrees around my body so only the flat part of the belt is in front with the sporran hangers dropping from it, the buckle off to one side below my armpit and hidden by the coat, and much less interference between the flat belt and the overlying waistcoat.

Being large in the kilted world has its own set of issues to deal with, sporran hangers only being one.

jeff