design idea - hoosiers

So, it turns out that there are these old oak kitchen cabinets called "Hoosiers" and somehow I never heard of them.  I've seen a few here and there, usually re-painted in awful colors, but these things are lovely.  They were the predecessor to built-in cabinets I guess.  They have a deeper lower cabinet-counter section with an enameled countertop and then the top cupboard section is shallower and is a separate piece with attaches with bolts or a bracket or something.
The details are crazy - most of them seem to have a flour bin with sifter-dispenser built in.  They have all sorts of weights and measures info inside the cabinet doors and who knows what other great details.  Plus, I love the brass hardware on the latching cabinets.
Anyway, so aside from the heresy (heresy?) of it (and maybe the price), what is to stop a person from just lining a bunch of the bottom sections up against a wall, putting on a single layer of stone or wood as kitchen counter and then mounting the upper sections to the kitchen wall and calling it built-ins?
Look at the detail on these things!