When would you ever need more than that in the Arduino ecosystem? I haven't in a rather long time. These days I usually don't even bother with LEDs, I'll just use an addressible pixel LED.
Rather than a transistor I might just use a relay, mosfet, or motor driver module, since I can get extra features like short circuit protection and the ability to quickly swap without soldering anything, which gets exponentially more appealing the more times you have to repair something that's been made with discrete parts.
The use cases where I'd be working any other way are mostly outside of what I'd use an Uno or similar for anyway. And I probably wouldn't be using 5v at all for prototyping something to mass produce, since 3v3 is taking over.
Rather than a transistor I might just use a relay, mosfet, or motor driver module, since I can get extra features like short circuit protection and the ability to quickly swap without soldering anything, which gets exponentially more appealing the more times you have to repair something that's been made with discrete parts.
The use cases where I'd be working any other way are mostly outside of what I'd use an Uno or similar for anyway. And I probably wouldn't be using 5v at all for prototyping something to mass produce, since 3v3 is taking over.