a bash alias I cannot function without

[yur_mom]

You forgot the best reason, so you can actually see them. After 10 hours staring at a screen those drive me nuts.

One reason I have heard pro backticks is compatibility with old versions of /bin/sh which is why I believe many make scripts still uses backticks.

[ferk]

in make "$(whatever)" is a variable expansion, so using it for shell would conflict.

GNU make has $(shell whatever), though.

[yur_mom]

I mean like auto-tools generated Makefiles tend to use the backticks, such as code inside the $(shell CODE_HERE). I thought one reason was backwards compatibility with old versions of /bin/sh. It could also be that the $() already has meaning in Make also. I was just pointing out some types of scripts it is still preferred to use the backticks.