You may be right about nostalgic reasons, but as a freshman during the emergence of microcontrollers, I've asked the same question to and old professor, in the sense of "why discrete digital electronics is still widely used?".

His response still resonates with me today: a military grade 555 would work in extreme conditions (e.g. heat), would last pretty much forever, would consume virtually no power, and will still cost you a penny.

Sometimes that's exactly what you need. Reliability, durability and cost trumps the power of programmability.