I think more people would use cloth if disposables weren't so convenient, especially during the day when having to drag around heavy,wet diapers becomes difficult. There are more and more people using cloth at night. They're effective, comfortable and inexpensive. They do have to be laundered but unless you're using more then is typical, it might add 1 additional load of laundry a week. There are so many types of cloth diapers available you can choose what works best for you.I personally like a pull-up cloth diaper. Much like a prefold with an extra absorbant soakerpanel down the middle, they are shaped well with excellent, comfortable and secure leg and waist gathers. I'm prone to rather large BM's while I sleep and soiled cloth diapers become much more difficult to launder. To get around that I use a disposable as a "diaper liner" which when fitted properly, keep most of the stool off my cloth pull-up. I simply run a pinwheel over the plastic shell to allow flow through as the disposable nears saturation. I use Desitin ointment (zinc oxide) for skin protection and Nullo for odour control. I don't have an overly smelly diaperpail in the bathroom. I only use the drier for a few minutes and then pin them to a drying rack in my spare room. I never put my plastic pants in the drier and they last much longer. I use the Kins model 10700 pull-up cloth diaper but also have a half dozen contour cloth diapers with the velcro closure. They also have comfortable and secure elastic leg and waist gathers. You just have to make sure the closures are securely closed for washing and drying. They work well during the day because you don't have to undress to remove them. When I use these during the day with the disposable "diaper liner" I use side snap plastic pants. I'm a big proponent of cloth diapers but I certainly like disposables too.
