General practice would be to use a circuit breaker rather than a fuse in cases where there’s an unknown/user-supplied load, because they’re easy to reset and people have a habit of doing silly things. They’re great for protecting systems against moderate overload, such as when one too many crock pots gets plugged into the same circuit during the local chili contest.
Fuses are better suited for the type of scenario where it’s assumed that some part of the system has already converted itself to smoke and/or shrapnel, and the main interest is in preventing what’s left of it from setting the building on fire. There is of course, some cross-over between the two ideas.
Long enough that it shouldn’t matter much what sort of protection device one uses. Mechanical contacts typically don’t fail due to excess current flow in a static state, but during switching after wearing for a while, and at loads within their ratings.
This post might be informative regarding fuse selection; the distinction between IEC and UL current ratings is particularly noteworthy.