Most 18650’s don’t go down to 2 volts. They should be considered “flat” at 3.4 volts - going any lower risks damaging the battery (unless you know what chemistry it uses, some can go lower safely).
Allowing a rechargeable AA to get down to 0.8V is also risky, if you go much lower than that you will damage the battery.
An 18650 is essentially the same voltage as three AA’s. And the amount of charge level they store is closer to five or six. The size and weight, on the other hand, is a bit more than one AA.
But the biggest advantage, by far, is a lot of devices can be powered by a single 18650 but would require multiple AA’s to have acceptable battery life (or a high enough voltage). As soon as you have multiple batteries thing start to get really complex. Your batteries will never be at exactly the same charge state and that can potentially damage the battery and the device.