fuses were always a thing of the past. most homes were built with fuses and not breakers. If you remember 'A Christmas Story', "The old man could replace fuses quicker than a jackrabbit on a date. He bought them by the gross".
Now, we just reset breakers until the breaker mechanically gets weak and trips too soon.
The same applies to this, only the overloads are smarter, you can incorporate NO/NC contacts for feedback to other devices to let people know with lights or PLC when something is tripped and what it is. They have phase loss detection built in similar to a GFCI that measures equally between all 3 legs, which is why if you use a 3 phase OL for a single phase motor, you have to run the power through all the legs by looping it from L2-Motor back into L3-line and then out again, or else it will just trip all the time even though theres no extra load.
Better, features, better protection, more upfront money, but less money overall if the application as people jamming things up or the motor is going to experience a rough life.
Ideally, you just use the OL on motors. and any branch wiring requires it's own fusing that is fused at the wire specs so no wires get burned up. Unfortunately I see bad practice all the time. 25 amp fuses installed on a 1Hp motor because they ran 10gauge wire, no overloads. and then 5 amp fuses branching to multiple motors who are all 1.3 amp FLA, you'll never blow a fuse at that point, just burn motors up.