In an enterprise environment with many legacy applications and department configurations, deploying an image preconfigured and set up for the user makes a lot of sense. Standing up a MDT environment in an enterprise is a relatively easy task (usually it takes more change in control/security procedures than actual install/setup time) that can be completed in an afternoon in most cases. Customizing the image is best done with reproducible tooling, and MDT will help with that as you can modify the default user profile.
That is, until all your applications are migrated to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). For more information, visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/whats-a-uwp. Once this happens, your user profile/default application scenarios become a bit easier to plan and deploy. This is Microsoft's long-term vision for all applications...