>I have no beef with if+for, but a large part of the reason they're "goto tools", if you will, is because industry is slow to assimilate many state-of-the-art ideas, sometimes by as much as 40 years.
For assimilation to happen, the state-of-the-art solution also has to result in a net gain over the existing solution, and the higher the differential in complexity between the two, the bigger that gain has to be.
And, these days, "net gain" in an industrial context is typically tied to almost no aspect of the quality of the code, but more to the management of large groups of people, as well as stability and growth of the business.
For assimilation to happen, the state-of-the-art solution also has to result in a net gain over the existing solution, and the higher the differential in complexity between the two, the bigger that gain has to be.