The OpenEXR file format, used a lot in graphics applications (compositing, rendering), is a fairly well-known application of half-floats.

There's some notes about the advantages of half-float pixel in the openexr documentation: https://openexr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/TechnicalIntroducti...

I don't think "obvious" was the best adjective, but "small memory/file size footprint" is probably the quality that's easiest to understand.