Somebody was napping when they changed the rules - perhaps a decade ago.
Romex was developed for, and marketed to, the residential market. I witnessed many strident representations by NM manufacturers to UL (and the code committees) that NM was only intended for use in small, simple residential buildings with wood frames.
This is why, for decades, the NEC limited the use of NM to wood-framed residential buildings of three floors or less. Three floors is as tall as you can go with wood framing; taller buildings require different construction methods.
I can't recall exactly when the NEC was re-written (99? 02?), but the NEC eliminated the earlier language completely, and instead referred to the construction type. As the code is now written, you could wire the Sears Tower, the Pentagon, and the mall of America using Romex.
Putting this in context, this was also (coincidence?) the same time the AFCI came on the market. We've seen other restrictions placed on places where Romex is likely to be used; witness the restrictions placed on residential multi-wire circuits in the 2011 edition. Romex has also been effectively banned from crawl spaces since 2008 (damp locations).
Yet, there are still plenty of localities where the use of NM (as well as "Smurf tube") is banned from anything that's not a small home. Even PVC conduit is banned in many places, except for very specialized applications (Chicago comes to mind).
