Some of the old ukes look nice with it but I'm not a big fan of it especially not on ukes with modern very high gloss finishes. It was really difficult for me to order my first Mainland because of the rope. I now own several of them because they're a great value but I'm
still not a big fan of the rope. IMO it's only saving grace is that they generally don't look as gawdy in person as they do in most photographs.
The rope does look better on my satin finished sopranos, but I'd still rather have the same ukes without the rope. Also, I think the bigger the body the less I like the rope - my Mainland mahogany baritone sounds great but IMO something that big just looks a bit goofy with that rope - just my opinion. Fortunately, I'm more into how something plays than how it looks - if a pink Dolphin with sequins turned out to be the best sounding uke I could afford I'd be playing a pink Dolphin with sequins.
Ironically, I was going to try one of the solid Ohana ukes when I was looking for a soprano specifically because I didn't want the rope...then I realized that the wood combination I wanted had...rope.
John