I'm wondering if using a CASE statement in SQLite (or other SQL engines) to replace data is not advised. For example lets say I have a query.

SELECT Users, 
                CASE WHEN Active = 0 THEN 'Inactive'
                        WHEN Active = 1 THEN 'Active'
                        WHEN Active = 2 THEN 'Processing'
                        ELSE 'ERROR' AS Active
FROM UsersTable;

When is it better to create a reference table and perform a JOIN. In this case I would create a Table 'ActiveStatesTable' with ActiveID, ActiveDescription and perform the JOIN.