We actually override static methods (in delphi), it's a bit ugly, but it works just fine for our needs.
We use it so the classes can have a list of their available objects without the class instance, for example, we have a method that looks like this:
class function AvailableObjects: string; override;
begin
Result := 'Object1, Object2';
end;
It's ugly but necessary, this way we can instantiate just what is needed, instead of having all the classes instantianted just to search for the available objects.
This was a simple example, but the application itself is a client-server application which has all the classes available in just one server, and multiple different clients which might not need everything the server has and will never need an object instance.
So this is much easier to maintain than having one different server application for each client.
Hope the example was clear.