Primarily because they were 'first'. Part of the Nobel was awarded to Betzig & Moerner who helped make single particles identifiable. They developed some of th

Primarily because they were 'first'. Part of the Nobel was awarded to Betzig & Moerner who helped make single particles identifiable. They developed some of the chemistries and molecules to make the microscopy possible. Hell did a bit more hard microscopy - he made the scopes, and took the photos using those single-particle techniques. I've never actually used STED, (PALM & STORM are the same, simultaneously co-invented). I have used STORM, and I think the reason is because they're technically a bit more straightforward and require some nice software on a standard scope rather than a bit more complicated scope. So STED, while a bit older, I think might be a bit harder to do technically than the newer (computational) techniques. All of them are super cool and in the past 5 years are quickly becoming 'standard techniques' that really will change the way people think about the structure of cells. They've increased our ability to peer into live, unperturbed cells from a resolution of ~200nm to as few as ~10nm - or the difference from being able to see that there is protein structure, to seeing what the structure is.