Never mind the ubiquity of beet and goat cheese salads. Beets are still regarded warily. Like many food fears, this is likely an issue of 1) history, and 2) texture.
Beets can take a long time to cook, and they make a literal bloody mess, so maybe that's why canned beets exist. Surely it's not because they taste good. (Though, let's get real, I ate my fair share from my college salad bar.)
And then even the most carefully roasted beets can have an unsettling bite, the type that leaves imprints of your teeth. I don't mind it, but I can see how one might be turned off by a beet's firm flabbiness.
As a textural challenge, I mixed some roasted beets with some classic accompaniments, tweaked to change the beet's textural gestalt. First, I drained some Greek yogurt, then mixed it with some tahini, for a thick, hearty base. Texture is a relative thing, and this mixture gave the beets more swagger, making it something that clings to rather than flops on the spoon. Then I toasted some sesame seeds for crunch and nubbles. If beets are weirdly cartilaginous, then this dish is the whole body -- flesh, curves, ornamentation.
Do beet haters like it? I don't really know, because I ate all of it.