Steady state theories required continuous creation of matter to keep intergalactic density constant as the universe expanded, but this was considered much more elegant than all the matter being created at once in a Big Bang a few billion years ago. Continuous creation was the only rabbit that needed to be pulled out of the hat to make the steady state work, and the rate of matter creation required was so low it could not be measured in the laboratory.

Another "philosophical" advantage to the steady state was the Perfect Cosmological Principle: at large scales of time or space, the universe was always the same in composition, density, appearance and in the average age of its components. No matter where or when you stood in it, if you looked around it always looked the same. Infinte and unbounded, no beginning, no end, no evolution, no heat death, no inflation; just a perfect eternal equilibrium for all space and time forever. And no singularities, in either space or time.

The fact that the observations (the 3 degree Kelvin microwave background, as well as the discovery of the quasars) was able to overcome this scientific prejudice almost overnight should put to rest the myth that scientists are dominated by orthodoxy and conservatism. The current model is still being questioned by folks like Halton Arp, but the observations from the newest generation of telescopes makes it ever harder and harder to "save the phenomenon". The steady state was the universe everyone wanted, both lay and professional; but it doesn't look at all like the one we wound up with.