[krapht]

In lower level languages, when you use switch, you make it easier for the compiler to generate a jump table.

In higher level langues with strong, static types, the switch statement can indicate to the compiler you want to match on the type of the variable; it can do analysis then to make sure your pattern match is exhaustive.

[lucideer]

These are good examples. Especially for a lower level languages this makes a lot of sense.

For higher level languages, I would imagine typeguards would provide some of the desired functionality here, while being much more lightweight than a full alternative conditional syntax.