The "point" of pixel art-- what makes it so convenient for graphicians, even amateur ones-- is not the blocky appearance (what you call "pixelated" - but in fact these icons did not appear "blocky" on the CRT screens that were in common use at the time!), but to set a uniform constraint on fine detail (and sometimes color depth) within the image, and then to maximize quality while staying within that constraint. It is perfectly consistent to want a means of rendering these images that preserves whatever level of detail was in the original while not introducing blocky artifacts.
I can kind of see this argument if you're talking about playing nintendo on mom's old dog-eared TV with the UHF adapter... but frankly I prefer to see pixel art in its original unmolested, pixellated form
edit- on that note I remember very clearly that 320x240 games had a blocky appearance in the 640x480 era. That was one of the biggest reasons to get a 3D card!
1. it's amazing this game actually runs at 640x480
2. there's no point in having resolutions any higher than that, as you can't see the individual pixels at that size anyway (I had a 14" CRT, viewable area probably around 13").
At least in the early to mid 90s you definitely still had "CRT fuzz" on computer monitors.
