What's the alternative, though? Removable panels will be more expensive, and troublesome in various ways.
Drywall is not too bad to deal with. And 99% of the wall surface doesn't need to be opened for a -long- time.
Drywall is not too bad to deal with. And 99% of the wall surface doesn't need to be opened for a -long- time.
Drywall is manageable and cheap, I agree. But it's more painful than it should be for something that _will_ require maintenance.
And for telecom / low voltage, you have a lot of freedom of how you do it.
There are a lot of downsides though. You lose airsealing, if you don't have an airtight building envelope on the outside of the drywall. You lose fire resistance. You often lose aesthetics, although I've seen this done extremely tastefully. You lose childproofing, and run the risk of a kid electrocuting themselves or destroying your plumbing or dropping stuff in the wall. You impose constraints on what can go on the walls and where your furniture can go.
Given that drywall is pretty easy to cut and replace, most people figure it's just not worth the costs for something you do infrequently.
Personally I've been printing snap in access panels whenever I have to get into a wall these days - in white PETG they pretty much disappear into the wall for me.