Of course when they are broken , but lets say you have a 5 year old wheel, the rim goes, do you bother reusing the hub. You've already replaced a spoke or two. Wouldn't the hub be pretty worn out?
So if you were getting ready for the near or med term demise of your rim would you forget about the current spoke count and just standardize on one count lets say 32. Even though two bikes are 28 and only one is 32?