Ok, customers seem to be the same everywhere. Here they would usually just paper over the cables. I've seen flying twisted and taped splices that had been papered over, or junction boxes that had a new "cover" made of 4 (!) layers of wallpaper.
I know what you're talking about, in our 1913 house the top of the panel is about 5mm away from the wall, if I had gone a bit higher it would be several cm. They didn't care much about even or not when they plastered those walls 90 years ago.
I think originally the brackets were installed for safety reasons as well, so as to keep the wiring away from the wall. In damp/wet locations it'S still code that the cables must not touch the wall. I've seen the same brackets for mounting light fixtures, switches and receptacles in basements.
