Aesthetics as Bob mentioned (WAF.. wife acceptability factor) pretty much covers it. Small switches are cheap and there is very little difference between brands. In fact internally they are almost identical since the chips are all manufactured by the same couple of companies. TP-Link are always worth a look.. and if you are able to stash it away in a cupboard rather than exposed to the world, metal cases are still better than plastic.
If you have a network where you would like to isolate guests for example who are using ethernet then using a smart switch could be well worth considering. Vast majority of people don't need managed switches. But they are now so cheap if you ever saw a place where its extra functionality would be useful then it would be well worth the extra.
Apple provides no SNMP in their AC routers, but smart switches do so you can track usage on the network for example. All smart switches have QoS and VLAN tagging as well as extra security functions. And you are buying that for $20.
See the articles here. (2009 but network stuff has not changed)
part-1-what-a-managed-switch-can-do-for-y…
part-2-security
part-3-bandwidth-control
how-to-segment-a-small-lan-using-tagged-vlans
All the companies have smart switches.. Netgear, TP-Link, D-Link and they do tend to be somewhat better than their purely domestic lines.
