Not really, compared to other systems in your house. Take HVAC... big metal furnaces burning gas within the conditioned space with tubes/duscts strung through the walls, attics, and crawl spaces. This system is way more cumbersome. Bolting some panels on the roof is probably one of the easiest retrofits you can do. Source - I redo houses.
> They're unsightly to look at and devalues the leafy suburb view
To me the leafy suburb view gets a lot uglier if you think about the massive consumption it requires compared to only slightly denser options (eg streetcar suburbs). It only works because of massive gov't subsidy (basically by not putting a price on carbon emissions). We Americans need to get over single occupancy car dependency. It is an environmental disaster. It is also a health (drive everywhere, don't walk/get implicit exercise) and social disaster (socio-economic stratification).