(Jeff Eaton kicks off.)
Canonical use for token is mailmerge.
User mail is hardcoded system in Drupal 6, it doesn't use token.
Pathauto. Everyone is using it, or should be.
Immediately we proposed it for inclusion in Drupal core. More than three years ago.
Really, it wasn't good enough for core.
Organization: An all-you-can-eat buffet of crazy-- too many modules made tokens available, with all different names, and no categorization.
Code reuse: Date formats are hell.