You can launch into a WSL shell in seconds without having to wait for a VM to spin up. WSL doesn't run the full slew of linux processes and uses the same memory space, so both CPU and memory utilisation is much lower than a VM. You don't need to contend with all the fiddly configuration parameters and config of VM software, and it integrates into the Windows environment by default, again without fiddly configuration.
If you're doing sysadmin work or web development, and need to run Windows software as well or are on hardware with better Windows support, it's hard to see why you wouldn't use WSL.
To your point on total control of the emulation, not everybody needs that. If your use case means you need a real Linux OS environment, then sure, WSL isn't for you.
If you're doing sysadmin work or web development, and need to run Windows software as well or are on hardware with better Windows support, it's hard to see why you wouldn't use WSL.
To your point on total control of the emulation, not everybody needs that. If your use case means you need a real Linux OS environment, then sure, WSL isn't for you.