I'm a non-smoker, but I have to say that the smoking room in the ANA F lounge at NRT around the 50's gates was a model for smoking lounges everywhere. It's pretty much hermetically sealed off from the rest of the lounge and so well ventilated that it didn't even reek of smoke when I went in right after someone had used it (I was getting restless during a long layover and wanted to see all the parts of the lounge). It was sleekly designed with comfortable chairs and great runway/tarmac views (in fact slightly better than the rest of the lounge itself in terms of seeing all the operations of that corner of NRT). The only complaint I could see was that in order to access it you had to go through the workstation area, which could get annoying to those trying to work in the lounge.
I understand that this was in an F lounge and thus well-maintained and not used by as many people as a typical smoking lounge (not to mention that the smoking lounges in Japan seem to be much cleaner and more advanced than their counterparts elsewhere), but I feel like the hermetically sealed aspect could translate to other lounges in airports. I for one would love to have outside smoking patios brought back as it would be kind of cool to be able to go outside once airside.