Trunk carpet - functional or just for looks?

I'm remodeling my CMC. Is the trunk carpet functional or just for looks? Could I just paint the trunk interior?
Thanks for your opinions.

My trunk is just painted (gel-coated, I suppose), and it's been o.k. for 16 years. I'm also thinking about what I will do with it when the car gets repainted. It seems that carpeting would reduce the interior dimensions a tiny bit - and I use every square inch of space in there, so I'm leaning towards painting it.

My two cents is that carpet inside the trunk helped to deaden road noise associated with the suspension. Not much, but it was a little quieter. In my case, a little grease in the axle tubes would have accomplished the same thing.

Tom, I just looked at your carpet job on the inside of your car. Very nice indeed.

Thank you Cory. I still have a lot of fine tuning to do. VS says they don't make the carpet pieces for the back of the seats, but I found some vinyl that matches or at least compliments the existing vinyl, which is a bit aged but not so much that I want to replace it. If I replace the seat vinyl, then it doesn't match the doors, then if I replace the doors, they don't match the dash......and on and on. Next thing you know, I'm remodeling my neighbor's house.