As
Frank Zappa put it (in
The Real Frank Zappa Book, this progression is the epitome of 'bad
white-person music'. While it may have originally been interesting, it has been so overused by
every songwriter (I can't think of a single songwriter ever who hasn't used it, including Zappa himself) that it's just become a musical place filler - using this to fill in a gap in a
chord progression is almost like saying 'erm' to fill in a gap in a sentence.
Much like the I-IV-V-IV or I-vi-ii-V progressions, the only way this can be used effectively to create original music (as opposed to formulaic cliche music) is to subvert the cliche. Zappa also said in the same passage (and I agree with him) that the most revolutionary piece of 'white-person' pop he'd ever heard was in the Beach Boys' Little Deuce Coupe where this progression is reversed - he called it 'an important step forward by moving backwards'.
Personally I'm only ever really happy with my own songwriting if I don't use these cliches, or at least put a twist on them, but too often I become lazy and fall into them. I wish I had the discipline to avoid these cliches, and I wish 90% of pop musicians were even aware that using cliches was a bad thing...