I wonder what do you mean by "not useful"? They just have to participate in the reputation system, but that's an issue only when the certificate is young.

Here's an excerpt from MSDN:

> Detractors may claim that SmartScreen is “forcing” developers to spend money on certificates. It should be stressed that EV code signing certificates are not required to build or maintain reputation with SmartScreen. Files signed with standard code signing certificates and even unsigned files continue to build reputation as they have since Application Reputation was introduced in IE9 last year. However, the presence of an EV code signing certificate is a strong indicator that the file was signed by an entity that has passed a rigorous validation process and was signed with hardware which allows our systems to establish reputation for that entity more quickly than unsigned or non-EV code signed programs.

Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ie/2012/08/14/microsoft-sma...