Why does the Nikon D300/200 have a pop-up flash?

I mean… If your gonna buy the D300/200, why the hell would you use it anyway? As a weapon?

A pop-up flash is handy as a fill light for outdoor portraits. A pop-up flash can fire a studio flash with out extra cord(s) -but watch your distance!

Okay. Its dark and you don't have a real flash

what do you do?

set the SS to 30 seconds? Or do you flash?

it comes in handy dude.

The flash can be used as a commander unit for Nikon CLS. I feel that is the biggest advantage of the pop-up flash in these models. Sometimes it's useful as a fill in flash too under very harsh light.

Well, on my D300 I mainly use it to control flashes and very rarely for a bit of fill flash when I left the big bag at home nad am travelling light.

Because it would look dorky if the flash was always showing. Yes, they could have built it without the flash but it seems you're the only one complaining. If you don't want to use the pop-up, glue it in place.