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I overheard someone deriding the value of traditional sit ups and advocating the "more effective" crunches and associated menagerie of commercialized movements. The answer to whether or not sit ups are worth anything won't be found in the deep bowels of academia nor on the frontiers of exercise physiology research. Like almost everything else in life the answers are right in front of us. The problem is that we like to avoid eye contact with the cold and insensitive truth.
What good are sit ups? How do you get out of bed in the morning? If you're strong and healthy you probably sit up. If you've been avoiding the core movements and have back problems then you probably role over like a 90 year old and hobble to your feet.
If someone were to knock you on your back what would you do? I would sit up and I would do it with intensity. I wouldn't cross my arms making sure that my hands stayed on my shoulders and elbows touched my knees and all of the other misguided criteria that most institutions use to measure a person's fitness based on a dissected form of sit ups, one that has been raped of all potential for injecting intensity. Consequently I train the sit up with intensity, using my arms just like I would in real life. I still get sore just like you think I would by doing the cheesy infomercial exercises (although those have been deleted of all intensity and aren't nearly as effective as intense sit ups).
The bottom line is that sit ups are a fact of life whether they are a part of your fitness regimen or not. If you don't want to hobble out of bed then start injecting some intensity into your sit ups. We should practice the movements that nature demands of us; hence, the value of crossfit. If you aren't training for real life then what are you training for? What else is there?