I can clearly think of very good reasons for most of the things you cited and a large majority of them have to do with neighbors who don't respect your privacy rights. For example it's entirely legal in a town near me to burn your garbage within feet of my house, creating a fire hazard and ash fall on to my freshly washed car. No legal repercussion because there's no "damage" to my property aside from the fact that my car is no longer clean, and my house may burn to the ground, but hey it's their property and regulations wouldn't help this right? When their habits cause my house to catch fire and they don't have the money to cover it, you know what would have been nice? Regulations to prevent this risk to my property.

Hair dryers become a fire hazard above certain temps, same with the tea kettle. Septic toilets can overflow if not properly sized and done on the cheap in neighborhoods. Fences fall over, trash in your yard impacts house values of your neighbors that you can't recoup, width of doorways affects handicapped access as well as impedes egress during fires. I used to service homes affected by disasters so I've seen a lot of these first hand because we're in an area with a lot of houses built before the regulations. Regulations clearly provide value, especially when protecting property and safety rights that either are unlikely to be recouped or aren't able to be effectively proven otherwise.

I absolutely HATE neighborhood associations though. What you're growing in your front yard, who you have over for guests, what outrageous color you paint your house, none of that impacts other people nor contributes to overall safety of others.