Mame served as a great home alternative to the ps1 and saturn ports available at the time. As arcades declined, emulation was a completely viable way to continue playing many newer ng games outside of an arcade or an aes. Newer (at the time) neo geo games like kof99, LB2, MotW, etc were ported to the dreamcast, but other action titles like Real Bout 2, Sengoku 2001, Rage of the Dragons, etc could only be played on actual hardware or an emulator. Fast forward to now, and you have many options for earlier titles and popular releases, but not so much for games like Zed Blade and Zupapa. Additionally, although the japanese ps2 neo geo collections are very well done, from a purist perspective, they still can have cut content when compared to the carts (removed blue mary nudity). In these cases, mame can be a subjectively better option to console ports/legal emulation options.
Mame can be good enough for play, but of course, nothing beats actual hardware. However, for mvs exlcusives like Bang Bead, Zed Blade, and Zupapa, mame is not a bad alternative way to simply enjoy these titles when having an mvs is not an option for the player.