Ray tracing is neat, but not as wonderful as some people think. There are algorithms that more closely simulate true optical phenomena, and the less 'realistic' algorithms currently used in consoles and PC video cards are making big strides in appearance.
When it comes down to it, CG will always be an approximation of what really happens in the real world with light. While ray tracing may be conceptually more elegant, if you can achieve the same results with other techniques that require less computation, why not do so?
