Whatever fireflybob says, you can't always get the destination ATIS in time for your descent brief, and not all our colleagues have data links like ACARS.
Chris Scott, I agree but I don't think I said this! The company I work for doesn't have ACARS (I wish!).
One of the challenges with ATIS is co channel interference, one of the most classic ones is the EMA ATIS which is blasted out by CDG (I think) such that you cannot realistically copy same until the Luton area when approaching from the south. Apparently the DOC of arrival ATIS is only around 60 nm. But the same happened at MAN some time ago and when crews started filing reports with CHIRP they eventually changed the ATIS freq!! The weather isn't the only issue, it's the runway in use which if you second guess the wrong way requires a change of set up and brief whilst descending in some of the busiest airspace in Europe - a recipe for an altitude bust maybe?
Of course in the "olden days" on first contact with LATCC as well as the inbound routing STAR etc one was passed the Runway in use at destination. Presumably this was dropped due to issues of RT congestion and controller workload etc.