I love the result of needle turn applique, but I'm am so slow at it. There is a border I want to do on a special quilt and I don't want to do machine applique and I keep putting it off because of the time I know it will take me to finish it.
I think in general, most people either don't have or don't want to spend the time it takes to do it the old fashioned way. Corners and indentations are much harder to do neatly and at least for me, everything can feel fumbly at first when I'm trying to keep the applique piece stead while I stitch. If it were a wall hanging, I'd machine applique too.