You need to define 'use' - for example, valves are certainly not ideal when it comes to driving loudspeakers which is why output transformers are necessary. Of course those introduce a whole new set of issues. You can go the OTL route but then you have a huge output impedance and very little current capability, so again not ideally suited to driving loudspeakers.

You also need to define 'smaller range'  - are you talking about voltage, bandwidth, current or something else?

I've never accepted the simple circuits are best argument because that is purely visual. What matters is what that circuit is doing to the signal passing throught it, and on that basis you cannot just split simple and complex into good and bad.