I agree that low end chipsets are a useful thing for many people, and good enough for most purposes, though I would add that this isn't just about "Intel HD" - the same is true (to a less extent) for Intels other chipsets (e.g., GMA), and both NVIDIA and AMD have low end chipsets.
NVidia and AMD's embedded chipsets are quite a bit more capable than Intel's, even to this day. Sadly, they are distinctly less ubiquitous.
Intel's GMA chipsets, on the other hand... *shudders* I spent quite a while with a couple of GMA parts, and in the few areas where performance wasn't awful, the drivers were so bad that you couldn't make use of that performance.
