People do use it. So stop complaining about it. It isn't associated with cheapness except in the minds of a tiny percentage of people like you.

I mean, like you admitted, it's not even a question of aesthetic qualities like the balance of letterforms. You really care about the extra-aesthetic connotations of whether the leg of an uppercase R is straight or squiggly? There are more important things in life. And I say this as someone who cares quite a lot about typography.

Like, sure, Palatino and Optima have strong associations with certain decades that even people who don't follow typography feel subconciously. But Helvetica vs. Arial? C'mon, I don't think so.