If you want cartoon characters to age, you have to update the way you draw them AND the way you characterize them - in essence, you have to be constantly building new characters and making a conscious decision in how to do so, whereas in live action this process will happen naturally. So I'm guessing the tradition probably started out somewhat accidentally. I'm also guessing that in the case of The Simpsons, they never thought the show would last as long as it has - and they couldn't very well start aging the characters in the fourth season after not doing it for three years. And if they had, we'd have a drastically different show now from the one we had 20 years ago, and it would probably lose much of its appeal.  Just imagine: Grampa's dead, Lisa and Bart are moved out with lives of their own, maybe married with kids - which household do we follow?  And Maggie is just about grown up.  The pets have died.  The kids have matured and changed.  It makes for a very, very different kind of show. 

To what extent the lack of change is practical vs. intentional is hard to say, but either way, cartoons have evolved as a medium where time doesn't have to advance - this is something no live action entertainment can ever achieve. I think this is why the tradition has stuck - it gives us something that will remain consistent from year to year in a world of change. Not that mediums involving time passage are a bad or uncomfortable thing, but sometimes that permanence has appeal. Cartoon characters already have less reality to them than filmed actors - they're icons, really, serving a purpose almost like that of archetypes. They stay the same shape, but their social commentary changes with the times.

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