It's more complicated than that too imo. Before Broken Sword 3 was released, Charles Cecil said they had always wanted the game to be 3D (https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/17561). So it's likely that hand drawn 2D (pixelated or not) was often used because of limitations also. It's further possible that developers chose point and click as the medium because of technical limitations (e.g. it's easier to draw/render static scenes than develop a 3d engine). Evidence of this is - further to the death of 2D at this time as you point out - the fact that point and click died also as a genre at this time, as 3d modelling tools and third party 3d engines were becoming more accessible.
I think this same dynamic applies to many old styles in gamedev that are now seen as having an aesthetic quality when really they arose out of necessity (e.g. 8-bit era pixelation, ZX spectrum colour palates, dithered transparency)
So arguably if developers are choosing hand drawn now or P&C, it's perhaps the first time that it's the "harder" option, rather than being a return to "normal"