That's a meaningless statement. Are you implying there is a definite line between secure and insecure systems? That's false. Are you saying that given a choice between a security feature and a convenience feature, most users will choose the security one? That's false too. Are you saying that if you ask a user, "do you prefer secure or insecure systems?", he'll say "secure"? That's true, but irrelevant. There are a dozen more ways that could be interpreted.
I'm saying that if you gave the option to users about whether they would like the site to store their passwords in plain text or encrypted, most would choose the latter.
The argument that "we can give the the same password" is bunk. You don't even know if that's the user you're giving the password to!
The password could be reset and the user could change it back to the one they were using previously. Clearly, if they've forgotten it, I'm not sure why you figure it's so important for the password to stay the same.
And if you gave the option to users of being able to retrieve their old password or have a new one generated, most would choose the former. And if you explained the drawbacks and advantages of each approach and made the user make an informed decision, most users would just click the Back button.
No, i don't have any evidence, other than anecdotal. It's what I would prefer, because changing the password from random to something that I might remember is an extra step, and an unnecessary one unless security really matters (e.g. money is involved). I took it as given that people prefer less work over more work.
Most of them prefer secure systems.