There are plenty of situations where AOE LB is better than melee or comparable. Examples:
_ Ifrit HM nail like you mentioned. Ifrit EX nails if the party knows what they're doing. You can't say having an AOE LB dropping on multiple nails killing them instantly is not better than melee LB killing a single nail in the middle.
_ Garuda HM/EX both have usage for AOE LB when Garuda and both Sisters will take damage from it. The key to it is timing. I can drop a Meteor damaging Garuda and bring both sisters low on Garuda EX without touching the Spiny. You can't argue that is not better than Melee LB Garuda.
_ Titan HM sure doesn't have any but to this date, many people still LB the second group of adds on Titan EX even though the only drawback is the blinding effect.
_ Leviathan EX's second set of spumes. Most slow/inexperienced DPS parties rely on the AOE LB dead center to bring the 4 spumes down low so they have more time to dodge without worrying about them.
_ Moogle EX: instead of killing all moogles and LB the king, you can AOE LB the moogles that are close together, kill the others and burn the king down.
_ Coil turn 4: you can hit both dreadnaughts and the spinner rook if you aim it at the right time or 2 sets of knights/soldiers and spiders depending on how you're doing it.
_ Coil turn 5: AOE LB the snakes is undeniably the most common way LB is used in that phase.
_ Coil turn 6: You can AOE LB the slugs when they come out, burn boss and with enough DPS, boss would be dead before Honey blows up.
_ Coil turn 8: You can AOE LB the 5th set of tower dreadnaught and the boss. The dreadnaught have 30k HP so a LB won't kill it.
Melee LB3 has potency of 9000 while AOE LB3 has potency of 5400 so any time you hit 2 targets, you're already doing more damage. It just happens that 5400 potency does more damage than most non-boss target's HP so the overdamage is wasted resulting in needing more targets to do the same effective damage. There are plenty of opportunities to use AOE LB, unlike tank or healer LB, which if you need it, you're most likely wiping. Now go complain about that.
I never said it's impossible without AOE LB. It's just cases where AOE LB can be useful.