Ron's on the money. The Kugel represents a cannon ball and was intended to differentiate arty troops from others. Had the Germans been concerned about poking out eyes I should think that they would have switched all troops to shakos which were in wide use amongst some machinegun units, Jaegers, some naval units and air ship units.
Had the Prussians, Saxons, Wurters, etc been concerned about the gunners' eyes, the Bavarians weren't as they retained the pickel up until 1915. Furthermore, German gunners weren't the only ones to sport Kugelhelmen.
After 1871 a whole raft of countries adopted the Pickelhaube look. The Russians not only picked up the pickel but their heavy guard cav copied the Prussian Guard du Corps and their gunners wore Kugelhelmen.
In addition to the Russians, the Pickel was copied by the Danes and Swedes, Spain and its lookalikes in Latin America and of course the US Army and Marines. The spike helmet of the latter two was significantly modified.
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