Last year's Formula One noses were enough to give you nightmares of being attacked by a phallic object that has absolutely nothing to do with King Missile's body of work. Fortunately, the FIA agrees: no, the Easter Island nose treatment wasn't actually safe, and has been banned in 2015 per the rules.
The regulations that required a lower nose were supposed to spread an impact out over a larger area. Sure, the high noses with the lower attachments technically fit the FIA's mandates regarding a minimum height and a minimum centered surface area, but they didn't fit the aim of what the FIA was looking for.
The FIA feared that the banana nose treatment that many teams opted for wouldn't spread out energy from an impact as well as what they had hoped for, so they are not mandating a wider nose-bridge down to the wing. Asymmetrical and U-shaped noses are banned for similar reasons: the FIA doesn't want energy spread out unevenly depending on where the front of a car takes a crash. The nose is the structure that needs to take the hit and bust apart safely, not anything behind it (like the drivers' legs).
Here's Craig Scarborough on The Racers' Edge taking a good, detailed look at the new nose regulations:
This looks much, much better than last year's noses, that's for sure.
[H/T Road & Track]