Often, it's not about print. People sometimes take vector images of plots and squeeze a bunch of them on a single page, with the idea that whoever views the paper online can zoom in if they're interested enough.

It still has limited resolution and a much higher storage footprint. Plotting charts is the vector graphics use case par excellence. Having svg support is a no brainer.

Of course you're right that we do need to support SVG and vector formats, but it's also not entirely true that "vector >> raster" in all cases.

Raster does have limited resolution, but so does your screen or most output devices (yes, even scientific plotters).

It's also not necessarily true that it has a higher storage footprint; it depends on the complexity and number of glyphs, the fonts you need to embed for the LaTeX formulae, etc. etc. In large-data cases, raster can be a much more viable visualization transfer medium.

That's true, in practical uses a sufficiently high res raster is indistinguishable from a vector image. Still, it would be nice to have that option.