I wonder if power usage is also significantly better (rather than open air cooking)
There's an interesting video from Adam Rageusa on how bad gas cooktops are:
I think that gas cooktops and open-air cooking vessels are just used frequently because they're easy to show off on cooking shows... Its hard to make a Youtube video on things cooking in a sealed pressure cooker.
I've seen the gas vs electric argument too when I wanted to make a food truck. Cooks mostly prefer gas because of habits.