I tend to think of stop motion animation along the same lines as silent and black and white movies. It's a lost art form that's difficult to justify doing today in the wake of advanced technology, but the world of entertainment is clearly missing something without it. There was really something clever and creative about the way it looked.
You know, if the "Toy Story" movies had been made during the 1970's, they would have almost certainly been made with stop motion animation and it's interesting to think about how that might have looked.