Myth busting: Children who wear cloth nappies toilet train earlier than those who wear disposables.

I recently overheard a couple of older ladies talking about how, when they were raising babies, there was only cloth nappies available and consequently children toilet trained earlier than children these days who wear disposables. I overcame the desire to join in their conversation and tell them about my experience.
My son, Brendon, is two and a half years old. He has always worn a combination of cloth and disposable nappies. He usually wears the disposables when we go out or to sleep in, and the cloth nappies the rest of the time.
Over the last few months, one of the mothers in my mothers group has toilet trained her son, he is now even dry at night, and has never worn a cloth nappy. The other mothers in my group were starting to consider toilet training as all their children (all boys by the way) were telling them they had done or needed to do 'a poo or a wee.' Brendon was not showing any indication of being any where near ready to toilet train, and he is the only one who wears cloth nappies in the group.
I discovered one thing in common amongst the children in the group either toilet trained or showing that they were ready...all had nappy free time. This is something I had never really given Brendon much of.
After chatting with both my mother and mother-in-law about it, both suggested putting him in underpants (jocks) on warm summer days. Over the last few weeks my husband and I have been doing that, and just putting up with cleaning up the accidents. Fortunately we have exposed floorboards in most of the rooms in our house! Over the last week or so we have been rewarded, firstly Brendon started to notice he had done a wee...it's pretty hard not to when it is running down your leg and you are standing in a puddle! However, recently we have noticed huge progress when he uttered the words "Mummy, I did a poo." He then tells me it is hard to walk when you have a poo in your jocks or your nappy (cloth or disposable, he is now noticing when he does a poo in either).
About 12 months ago, Brendon was happy to sit on the potty and do a wee. All of a sudden one day he said no to the potty, and now refuses to sit on it. I did manage to get him to sit on it last week one day when he said he wanted a particular toy that he figured out Dad must have bought him and hidden in the house somewhere. I told him if he did a wee or poo on the potty or toilet he could have it. He sat on it for quite a while but nothing came out. What did come out was an explanation of why he doesn't like to sit on it, he told me it is uncomfortable. The potty he has is one with a hard plastic seat. He does have a cushie tushie for the toilet, but doesn't seem to like sitting up high on the toilet. So now I am on the hunt for a soft seated potty, perhaps one a bit gimmicky (I'm thinking flashing lights/music/etc) to entice him to sit on it.
So to those ladies who say that babies that wear cloth nappies toilet train earlier than those who wear disposables, I say that myth is BUSTED. My myth is that babies that have more nappy free time toilet train earlier than those who don't. Brendon now wears jocks when we are at home, unless I am putting him down for a sleep. Sure, we go through about 3 pairs of jocks per day, and I am forever cleaning up puddles off the floor (and the lounge and his high chair...), but it isn't as much of a hassle than I thought it would be.
By the way, I also tried disposable training pants, but they didn't work either. It seems the only thing that gives Brendon the feeling of being wet is when he is wearing jocks.