for kitchen stuff I completely hate cords unless its on something permament.
Say you have a bread machine, blender, or other medium to small sized appliance (like a vegetable chopper/salsa maker) that you don't use every day. You need to wrap the cord every single fucking time.
For a long time I have been plotting to make some kind of POWERCON or other connector on all the appliances in the kitchen and use them on a reel that hides under the cabinets.
Some devices are supposed to be time savers, say a mini-food processor that is useful for making a cup of chilli or mayonaise (working capacity about 1.5 cups). It's not useful enough to be a permament presence on the counter top, and it wins over a kitchen knife in speed. It's more cleaning but fine.
However you need to wrap a power cord around it like 10 times before you can store the thing. It's preposterous. I hate doing it. If you stow it where you need to bend down there is no good way to situate it without the cord unraveling on you and going all over the place. Something must be done.
I feel the same way about the blender wand, you need a decent long cord on it, say if you want to blend soup, but then storing it is a hassle. If you do it 100 times a year it gets really really old.
Like you came home from work, stopped at the grocery store, did the line, unpacked, sorted, etc.. now time to deal with the extension cord again. If you are tried there is a chance you will end up stopping at the deli to buy a sandwich rather then making something healthy just because you need to deal with the cord after 10 hours away from home doing all that crap.
Shorter cables on big appliances like microwaves and toaster ovens are retarded though, you want to be able to place them in a way to maximize countertop space. There is no god damn reason to put a short cord on that since no one is carrying a microwave out of a shelf every morning. I have no problem putting a adhesive cable holder thing on the back of a microwave to put a loop of wire around it after its positioned properly.
I expanded my kitchen to the god damn porch so I can have more appliances out in a easy to clean way (i.e. big mixer, pizza oven, microwave, toaster oven are all on the porch). Then I can have a blender, food processor, crock pot, electric skillet out when I need to use em with little effort. And cleaning is easier if its all spread out since you can scrub in big sweeping motions with your hand. Confined space cleaning makes me insane, your range of hand motion is restricted to like 15% of the natural movement and you can't get any momentum going on the rag or scowering pad and you end up with sore hands.
And I will tell you why they put short cords on heavy appliances, cost, its plain as day. I replaced the cable on my toaster oven so I can use the old one in my shop as a parts heater and I instantly noticed it was short but they had to legally use heavy gauge copper. When I just randomly picked up a replacement cord off the shelf it was twice as long an weighed about as much as the 3 foot cord on the toaster oven. They don't want to pay for copper. Had to search far and wide to find a cord of similar quality but longer length to the one they put on the oven.That thing is all about cost, in order to clean it without being a fucking ant-eater I had to make custom tools like little dowels with steel wood that straps on to them to actually clean it nice around the heating element shields which are like stamped sheet metal pressed into the chassis. I don't think it was even possible to clean without taking the back of it off and using special tools to poke at it with at it with strange angles.
I don't like making money at the expense of my hands in regards to ergonomics. I know too many people with messed up hands from digging or even fine repetitive work like crimping. Same thing with heavy grease scrubbing. It's like you are making or saving money at the expense of your ligaments and joints (its not even the muscles that are taking the beating). Otherwise wives would have jacked hands.
Yes most people would freak out when they see how many very similar precise looking fine hand tools like pliers and cutters I own. If its not the major muscle groups like quads and triceps that hurt after a hard days work then your probably not equipped with the correct tools.