I had that attitude until fairly recently. I used a comparator and a trimp ot in an application that could have been served by a SOT-23 microcontrolle r or something similar, on the grounds that it was silly to use a dedicated processor to drive a status indicator LED. Real Men still do analog, righ t?
I soon realized that since nobody buys trimpots anymore, nobody bothers mak ing them very well, at least not at a price I want to pay. The second lot of trimpots I bought (presumably legitimate Bourns 3223W-1-102E parts, purc hased from Mouser) exhibited a 25% failure rate as soon as they were solder ed to the board.
So your less-experienced engineers may be right on this one. It seems that trimpots and trimmer capacitors are now considered weird parts. I'm learn ing not to use weird parts when I don't absolutely have to, even if it make s me feel like less of a Real Man.
-- john, KE5FX