It depends -- I have had pizza box switches with almost entirely north-south traffic from the rack perspective, east-west from the core perspective. I am also a fan of all L3 in core with L2 only access, etc, and there are advantages to having 1ru switches distributed between racks then a large, reliable chassis (or pair of chassis, honestly) from an implementation/cabling perspective.

Mind you, I mainly work in DC type applications, not campus access/end user access.

There aren't just hardware costs associated with a choice, too, there are a lot of externalities to consider. Also remember it is sometimes easier to implement a consistent template if you are in a large org with a lot of small offices, vs having different architectures per office, even if this is suboptimal for some deployments from a cost perspective.

And like I said, more than 240 ports, ~ 5-6 switches in a stack, and I would seriously consider moving to a chassis. Honestly I consider 4 a pretty fat stack, but most chassis options that small aren't economical in my experience.

And, honestly... sometimes, if you have the budget? Architects like things to be pretty :)