I know this is an old question, but there is arguably a legitimate use these days: touch screens without an actual keyboard. For example, the typical US keyboard layout isn't necessarily available in full form if you do any coding via tablet or something like that, which admittedly is hopefully rare due to how cumbersome it can be (three clicks on mine for an assignment operator). I personally don't use them if possible, but they are useful in absence of the actual tokens they're meant to represent.
Again, I really hope people avoid this where possible, but it is one reason to know and use them.
