Like Rich said, it's better to have it than not too. When I first got my truck, after a few months I got one of those chrome air cleaner pie plates, sandwiching the filter and leaving the filter exposed. Looks cool right? It's a performance engine so chrome is cool duh. Well after a couple years and a new engine and going to fuel injection, I found that nothing works better (and eventually after I clean it up a bit and get it powder coated) looks better than the stock filter box and plastic tube. Both of mine are in good shape, tube cleans up and box just needs to be sanded and powder coated.
The engine bay now looks very nice, all black paint, serpentine system, dual electric fans, stock air box and tube, no cluster of vacuum hoses.
The snorkel serves it's purpose well. The only 2 reasons to eleminate the snorkel and box would be a complete engine swap to a newer LS or similar series engine or some kind of crazy custom built drag race engine were day to day drivability goes out the window.