I think that, as always, it's dependent on the athlete, the needs of the sport, and the coach.
Like you said, if they can be coached properly (which isn't hard with a basic power clean/snatch, but could be a serious problem for a full squat clean/snatch), and the sport requires that kind of explosiveness, why not?
I don't think a non-OLer should necessarily go to the effort of becoming a technical expert in the lifts, because that can take quite some time and the return on investment won't be very high. If you've got a guy that knows the lifts, I doubt he'll be worse for it; I just question the judgment of teaching them. The power clean/snatch are a different matter, you can teach those in an hour w/o much trouble. Start at the hang, jump, shrug, keep the arms straight, elbows up on the catch.
But I can easily see cases where this wouldn't hold true. That being the case, explosive clean/snatch pulls w/o the catch, jumps (weighted and unweighted), and even sprints could be an acceptable alternative, depending on the sport in question.
In short, I see them as being contextually useful, but not absolutely necessary.
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