Theater of the mind is an old technique when minis and maps were not feasible, and i am wondering what the current opinion on it is.
Some Editions and systems mechanics do skew toward maps, so if you bring those up, please refrain from Edition warring. It is ok to say "I like x because y Edition was my fave" but don't be toxic about different opinions please.

Comments are welcome, but don't a bilge pile about anything.

I used TotM in 1 and 2e. Then 3e came along, and it really felt like it was more built for maps, with so many things being contingent on very specific positioning, so that was when my then-group switch over. In 4, it seemed like maps were basically required.
Now in 5, it does feel like we could reasonably go back to TotM, but I’ve just grown to enjoy maps. And I’m blessed with resources to make terrain and have painted minis, which I like because I feel like they help me better immerse in the scenario. And I feel like maps can allow for more tactically interesting combats, as it’s easier to say there’s a tree right here and these specific squares are difficult terrain. You can certainly pull that off in TotM, I just find it easier with a map.

Depends.

Small fight, not much environment to take care of, heavily narrative group, all good reasons for theater of mind.

Highly complex fights with lots of participants, environmental effects, etc. map based combat.

Walking through a town or city: TotM is fine. Combat: The rules are all predicated on distances, so a map is mandatory.

It very much depends for me. For complex combat, maps are effectively a necessity. For simple combat and basically anything else, text works fine.

For RP and general interaction, I use ToM. It's much more engaging and immersive.

For combat, we use minis and maps etc. it's just too complex to track everything, and distances are especially problematic. Unlike some other systems, combat is built with maps and physical stuff in mind, so it struggles once you leave that premise.

In my mind: "Theatre of the mind" is inherently involved in TTRPGs: since there is absolutely no way that, as much work as even the most dedicated DM can do, to perfectly replicate the scene at hand.  At some point; you NEED players' imaginations to do some of the work.

That being said: leaving players in a blank void with "just make it up yourself" is not fair in the slightest: there NEEDS to be some common focal point for people to have a "shared" mental image.  Which is where a map comes in.  It doesn't have to be complex, or photo-realistic; some squares on grid paper will do.  But it NEEDS to exist; for combat especially, but for role-play or exploration as well; having something for players to latch onto and build their mental image around helps with navigation and makes things a bit less arbitrary.  YES: I'm fully aware that at the end of the day we ARE "playing pretend with extra steps"; BUT: the reason for those extra steps and the dice is to remove at least some of the inherent grey area.

The hand-wave of "just theatre of the mind it!" I think has gotten to be a bit of a crutch for module makers: I know I'm in the minority here but that was really something that made me hate Wild Beyond The Witchlight: at multiple points that book gives you lists of potential encounters with precisely zero assets to actually run said encounters; with the excuse then being "just theatre of the mind it!"  Even key story moments have no real map assets or illustrations of what exactly you're supposed to be seeing or how things are laid out.  Fine if there's just an exchange of dialogue there; but well... there isn't: you're expected to arbitrate how contested events and yes potentially combat takes place in these locations.

The problem with Theatre of the Mind is that no two people will picture the same thing in their heads as the other does. In combat this will inevitably lead to one person thinking their character is closer to or farther from something than the DM does (and every other player as well). This is less important if you are playing a melee character that really only needs to keep track of who is in reach, but a spellcaster with spells of differing ranges and areas of effect needs to worry about hitting teammates, or dropping spells meant to deny the battlespace only to discover that the monsters simply walk around it because the player and DM had different ideas of what was where.

I have also found that older players are better able to operate in Theatre of the Mind than younger players (i'm talking over 40 and under 40). Older players are used to having read books and using their imaginations, while younger players are more used to watching movies or playing video games.

As has been said, sometimes you have no choice (especially playing online where setting up a map in a VTT takes quite a bit of prep, whereas on tabletop you can just grap a marker and draw it out on the battlematt). So I answered 'map prefered'.

I'd say ... all those who think ToM is a problem because of some question of being in range or something ... well, they must have never done it. 

ToM is all I do, I quite simply never use maps. Ranges in DND are generous, no one is ever not in range of anything. Now, that is an overstatement - you can be out of range of Burning Hands, or too far from an enemy to both move and attack this round - but let me simply assure you: That is never any problem. Ever. 

Because that's the sort of thing ToM actually does better than any map ever could. With a map, you come up against hard limits: If the range too tells you you're out of range, you can't do it. 

ToM is more like Schrödinger's uncertainly principle: You are both in range - and not in range - until we (me as GM and the player in question) need to figure out what's possible. Now, in almost all cases, a question of 'am I in range for this' will be answered with yes. 'Can I get both ogres with Burning Hands?' 'Yes, but you'll need to move a bit!' Bam! That's all there is to it. 

But sometimes a grey zone comes up. How much of this boat is covered by the Darkness spell? Well, I always have the answer to that, and I use Schrödinger's magic to dispel any nonsense a map might have thrown up, creating not the strictest, but rather the coolest, most dynamic or most interesting result.

Now ... some players want to be in control. That's different. They can be. If they want to hit both ogres with their Burning Hands, that will happen. But sometimes players really just want to dictate the battlefield or the flow of battle. Those players will have to find another GM. 

We play a lot of ToM but it can be “ interesting” the 7 of us all have ADHD to one extent or another and so are constantly distracting each other and the DM(s) from the game so that tends to get mixed into the ToM.. As a DM I like to have maps that I can refer to even if I don’t always draw them out or show portions of them to the players. We nd up with a lot of discussion of what things “look” like as our attentions float in and out between the game, the ongoing discussions and whatever else we happen to be doing at the table. It’s a bit confusing for the 2 newbies in the group but they are getting the hang of it. 

I much prefer using Maps both as a player and DM, but i don't mind as much for simple encounter, especially with few enemy or area feature.

A solo enemy on a plain is one thing, multiple ones or a pair encountered in surrounding composed of multiple areas, different elevations, waterplan for example is another.

No, it's not mandatory.  It helps many players visualize the combat area but it is certainly not required to play the game.

For me, the small stake fights that don't even tax the party are TotM. Anything that might challenge the party even a little I put on maps. The less important of these fights I really only do because some players get huffy about wanting to know exact distance from targets, but I can see the importance of knowing this for fights where the party is at risk. 

For me, it's about how complex the battlefield is. I just ran two fights in a row.

First one - large open courtyard, enemies coming to the PCs. TotM.

Second one - still a fairly large open courtyard (I was planning more complex, but ran out of time to put it together), but now the PCs are closing with the enemy, whose goals are not just messing the PCs up. Furthermore, three of the enemies have aura effects, including one large one that makes terrain difficult. That was a battlemap.

I enjoy encounters with a lot going on - traps, interactive pieces of the environment, environmental hazards, cover, etc. In a more complicated encounter like this, I need a map just to keep track of everything going on - and to be able to clearly communicate all of that to the players as well so they can own their choices and decisions. Maybe some folks can do that with pure TotM, but I can't.

Now I can certainly run simple, easy combat with TotM as well as most non-combat encounters. But my players love combat tactics, so we generally have at least one mapped combat encounter per session. I also like maps/visual aids for exploration, although these are typically larger-scale than a 5ft grid.

Pretty much all my combat is run on maps with the exception of minor skirmishes. I only use Totm for social interaction and the majority of exploration.

I love using maps for the following reasons which a lot of people have already echoed:

• Very much a visual person, so I like having a reference.
• Having everyone able to see what would and wouldn't be hit by an attack be absolutely clear prevents arguments at the table ("But I was behind the coloumn! That surely gives me cover!")
• I have enough to keep track of as a DM; having my numbered minis on the board helps me track who my minions are and also who my players are targeting.
• Not the main point, but gives me an excuse to use cool minis and scenery 

More power to those who prefer Totm, just not for me.

Theater of the Mind isn't really an old technique, people have been using maps since D&D was created (AD&D appears to have been played with 15mm figures, that's why 1" = 10' when listing movement speeds in AD&D, and AD&D does have things like facing rules), though VTTs do make using maps easier.

Using a map is a tradeoff -- it makes setting up an encounter more difficult, but makes explaining what's happening during the encounter easier. Maps also don't work well for things like running battles and chases. For a simple fight, a map can be more overhead than it's worth, though I mostly don't bother with really trivial encounters any more.

It's not so much that I hate TotM, but that my brain tends to not do so well without visual representation and references, its harder for me to focus on what is going on without that, particularly combat wise, but even when rping in general. It's why, when I DM, I use a lot of visual aids when describing things like places and creatures. 

I despise theater of the mind as both a player and a DM. I find no matter how detailed a description no two people are going to see the same scene in their head which negates strategy and tactics.