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== Why Legato?==
Why legato? When should you use legato? What is its effect on the listener? These are rather big questions. As mentioned above, the effect of legato is a smooth transition between notes. So why would you want that?
=== Contrast ===
Consider a world where you cannot use these legato techniques. How do you play a melody that has a few accented notes, but otherwise contains lots of relatively unimportant notes? You have to use contrast in your picking style, softening your stroke for most notes but really emphasizing the accents. Now consider a melody that has a few accents, some normal notes, and a few soft notes. Again, you can use your picking strength to achieve contrast, but it begins to show its limits. How different do the normal and soft notes really sound?
Legato to the rescue. This gives you another obvious layer of contrast to give the appropriate amount of emphasis to each note.
=== Subtlety ===
If you are playing a part that requires subtlety, legato is a good technique to use. Consider the more subtle instruments in an orchestra - flute, clarinet, and sometimes strings. None of these instruments have a strong attack. A legato technique will make the guitar sound more like these instruments dynamically.
=== Speed ===
I don't endorse using legato technique as a crutch for bad alternate picking technique; however, legato requires little to no synchronicity between the left and right hand. Since that is one of the biggest obstacles in speed playing, legato may allow you to play phrases faster than otherwise.
=== Continuity ===
Even if the phrase you're playing isn't subtle, you may want to use legato to make it seem smooth and continuous. This can help differentiate phrases, especially if they run into each other. You'd pick the notes on the beginning or end of the phrase and use legato for the rest.
=== Tone ===
By effectively removing the transient from the attack of the sound, legato effectively sounds different than picking. Transients have lots of noise or other non-harmonic elements of the sound. This can make picking sound percussive and aggressive. But sometimes you want a cleaner, purer harmonic tone; and you can use legato to get it. It's the same reason a composer will arrange a certain part of a piece of music for flute as opposed to harpsichord.