I've found checked exceptions pretty useful. I can pass context-specific details to the exception and encapsulate the message formatting to the exception itself

I've found checked exceptions pretty useful. I can pass context-specific details to the exception and encapsulate the message formatting to the exception itself (helps if I'm throwing that in multiple places). They also allow me to decide the http return code based on the exception. E.g. using Spring Boot's controller advise, I can map a group of exceptions to be user errors (say, bad request) and another group to be service errors (say, internal server error) etc and don't have to worry about where the exception is being thrown from - it'll return all the details with correct return code to the user.