Pixel art was born out of necessity, this economy of design came about due to the various technical limitations. The most famous example is Nintendo giving Mario a moustache to clearly separate his mouth from his nose.
Miyamoto, creator of Mario, stated that the moustache was put in place so players could see the different parts of the characters face.
Waves of nostalgia abound!
Gamers like me have an affinity for pixel art as we grew up with it, nostalgia is a wonderful thing and we don't need to apologise for it. Many indie developers are accused of being cynical and preying on my generations nostalgia and there is a debate to be had here. On the one hand there are A LOT of pixel art games out there right now and it can almost seems like a game isn't "indie" if its not pixel art or "retro" but that's a very cynical viewpoint. Pixel art can be really good and there are different levels within the medium, someone can make something visually very simple like Flappy Birds or Spelunky, but then someone can really take it to another level, giving it a modern visual twist in amazing games like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP or FEZ , which adds simple 3D polygons that mimic an 8-bit style to the scene.
The maturation of my generation combined with the ease of access to technology and a booming indie scene has created a wonderful time for pixel art and expression. This current gen of consoles promises amazing lifelike graphics but the game I'm most looking forward to is Hyper Light Drifter, a pixel art based game which looks astonishing.
Enjoy the feeling of nostalgia, don't fight it... learn from Sheldon!