> you often want to leave a nice pattern

Even when it comes to mowing, different people have different goals. I live out in the country, and tall grass means bugs and ticks, so my mowing tries to strike a balance of short grass near the home and the property edges to stop the ticks, medium grass most everything else because we like to let the clover grow, and tall grass, un-mowed for years on some spots, to allow an ecosystem where we still get monarchs and nightly fireflies.

Totally understandable if suburban folk have different goals, but either way, 100% agreed that efficiency is a secondary goal at best.