Help me cram these chairs in a bin  

I don't think there is much that can be said about this type of chair that would give them any wider appeal.  Even Finn Juhl Diplomat chairs are something I can't imagine buying unless I was furnishing an office, and felt that I had to have Finn Juhl waiting room chairs.
I got this Warren Snodgrass for Steelcase chair a couple months back.  It is a beautifully made chair, with a very solid frame of a single piece of bent elliptical chromed steel. The Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco has it in their collection. In the end it spent weeks on Craigslist, priced down to $20 in the end. Despite having something of a pedigree, the best response I got was, "Would you consider taking $10?"  I donated it after my attempts to give it away failed.

Thanks for the insight tchp.  It's a bit dissapointing since I could load up a steady supply of these sorts of chairs from the university surplus store just a block from my house, but nevertheless, it's better to embrace the limits imposed by Mr. Market as fast as possible -- he's a stern disciplinarian that fellow.

If you must furnish your place with these, either go for the more pedigreed ones like the ones made by Knoll for contract use (there are several designers like Jim Eldon, Hannah and Morisson or the better ones by Tobia Scarpa and Gae Aulenti and many others - see Knoll Universe book by Brian Lutz)
http://www.metroretrofurniture.com/cgi-bin/store_drm.pl?item=3079noll
or get creative with the wood finish and upholstery.  Turn them into art furniture or if you have a surplus of vintage and good quality upholstery, go for it but make it consistent throughout your space. 
It may not be your cup of tea but if you know a good tagger, you can commission one to tag all the upholstery for you, like a livable version of this.

or a more disinfected version

Avoid those crazy patterns specified in fast foods, HMO lobbies and chain hotels (even the ones by Knoll Textiles and Herman Miller). 
 

Thanks minimoma, I like your idea.  It reminds me of the folks who operate retrooffice.  I'm sure you and most folks here have heard of them, but just in case I'll mention what they do, which fascinates me from a business perspective.  They have accumulated an immense inventory of mid century tanker chairs and desks, presumably accumulated at government surplus auctions at basement prices, and they offer services to cutom update them with modern funky re-upholstering.  It seems like a pretty good business model.  Given those tanker chairs and desks sell for peanuts, the profit margin per chair must be pretty substantial if they've established an efficient in-house re-upholstering and painting team.