A problem with simulation in economics is that there is always a feeling that that simulation results are inferior to what could have been done if the writer was better at math. Let's say you derive some insight on heterogeneous agents transacting on a network. This is likely quite hard to tackle without simulation, but most of your peers reading the paper will hope there is some cleaner way to get the insight of the model. The result is that it's unlikely that economists will consider your result a classic, which is ultimately what is required to have a big influence in the discipline.