I don't think SSAO is really ever selected over more realistic methods for artistic preference. High budget animated films tend to go for ray traced methods even when they have a non-photorealistic style.
SSAO is just cheap.
SSAO is just cheap.
If you have to real-time light everything, then there's not a lot of other viable options to make your scene look a bit more solid and objects look more grounded for the cost of just a couple of milliseconds of GPU time.