Different projects obviously have different needs. I’m just pointing out that much of what I’ve heard people say about Raphaël is along the lines of “it’s nicer to use than raw SVG”, and providing a contrary data point.
Often, when trying to figure out what technology stack to use, developers look around at what seems to have chatter and hype. I think that in some cases they’d be better served by just learning the lower-level API, which isn’t too hard.