Our software vendor uses a lot of integer columns for status levels.  For example, in the Customer table, the CustomerStatus can be 0,1,2 or 3.  They then have a CustomerStatusComputed column for the convenience of anyone that's writing queries or reports.  This column shows 'Open','Hold','Closed' or 'Prospect' respectively.  This column acts as a sort of anchor or index location for human eyes.  Yes, a view can be used and many views already exist with this exact information but, to me, it's much more convenient to look at the table for this information.