[brudgers]

<-> Ten foot component video cables are not uncommon but sometimes a gang of five might be as much as three dollars, if they haven't been there long enough for the tag color to cycle.

But yes, most of my runs are shorter than that. I really only need long RCA's for running audio from instruments and outboard on one side of my desk to the mixer at the other. The short runs aren't long enough to have significant capacitance, resistance, or experience inductive noise beyond what my projects require. They are a reasonable engineering decision.

<-> Ordinary RCA cables are more supple and more compact than 1/4" or XLR. If I was making my own long run cables from scratch, I'd use CAT5/6/7 anywhere I could. The stiffness and bulk of coax wouldn't match most of my use. Though that's my use not yours.

<-> I was using gold-plated-HDMI as an obvious example of the audiophile market segment.

<-> My experience has been ordinary RCA cables are more reliable than ordinary 1/4 for general patching because the strain relief tends to be better proportioned to the weight of the cable. And there's good availability of adapters to other common unshielded plug form factors. Again, at least for my use.