It's not the worst possible option when you want to wrap a command you yourself wrote in some extra stuff. For example, in a test script, you might pass the command to a function that

(1) Prints some info about the test that's about to execute

(2) Evals the command

(3) Checks/reports the result

Given the choice I'd rather use lambda, but not all languages make that very convenient/readable. In such languages, a carefully used eval might be preferable to ad-hoc interpretation.

Fair enough. Although even then I would consider using a function or a class or lambda first, I suppose as long as you completely control the code being evaled it's not fundamentally different than any other string or code on the server. It would still fill me with a gnawing sense of dread though.