I vote yay too.
There is a way to grow out bangs that's less painful than doing it all at once, let's see if I can explain it. What you do is partition off the part of your bangs that's closest to the rest of your hair, and start growing out that part. Then the part that's closest to your forehead you can trim a little (as long as possible). The next haircut, you partition off a little more.
This gives you some bangs that look neat, while growing out most of the thickness. The way I know about this is that my hair stylist grew out my bangs this way *without my noticing* until one day I woke up and thought, "What happened to my bangs?" No kidding!
I like the hairstyles you linked to.