I don't use them routinely on my own sites, but have used them on various client sites, and on the East Bay WP Meetup site, when that was the way the theme specified the display of featured content, or when a client wanted a notice displayed at the top of the blog. (There are better ways to do that now, but I've been building WP sites for a long time.) I think it's a useful function and doesn't get in the way of people who aren't using it.