Yes I use them, though I, too, like to record with hardware .. not sure why.

Sims are fun. There is a lot of variety; I'm not enough of an amp aficionado to say how accurate any given amp sim is, but they sure are fun. I have quite a few, probably more than I need.
A couple freebies that have stuck around here are Freeamp and Helian bass. Why? They are free and easy to move from one system to another.
I have kept moving them from drive to drive because they have been getting rare lately, but I see rekkerd has them now
http://rekkerd.org/fretted-synth/
When they say all Freeamp versions are different, they mean it. I've used them all, mainly because one version would not play nice with a given system but another version was fine.

They are not top of the list, but do have certain sounds/features I like.
To me the fun is having so many options. We could make a long list of amp sims and just about every one would have something cool about it. We live in a good time for recording musicians.

I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!