It depends on what you are trying to do. Find something in particular or just browsing.

For finding a specific album it's not so great.

For browsing your collection it can be useful. The album art can grab your attention in ways the plain name never can. And you'll find yourself picking things out based on the 'mood' of the artwork. Which was part of the whole experience way back when.

The grid view can't really show you the same size artwork and let you quickly skim through things. Coverflow does.

Yo dog, we took your boring laptop and added a 7" monitor!