You are not the only one with some of the feelings you mentioned. There are many that participate here that are not sold on AFCI, might be an OK idea, but still has issues, then when you look at how they got put into code you have to wonder how much the manufacturers lobbied the code making panels just to make sure they are going to sell them. If they are not required, how can they get back all they put into research and development, even though they don't have a perfected product yet - and after nearly 20 years still don't. When GFCI's were introduced there were similar issues with acceptance - but those that understood how they worked still thought they were a good product, not as many saw AFCI's the same way.
This forces you to either comply with the rules or to cheat them where you feel you can, and the fact that there are others out there that will do some of those jobs at an overall lower cost because they cheat the rules makes it more difficult to be competitive to the clients. All you can do if you want to comply is market yourself on the quality of your services and pull focus away from some of the necessary costs. The whole AFCI area is still difficult to deal with though. I think many have found that wiring errors are a big factor in AFCI problems, but there are still times when the problem is with equipment that gets plugged in and yet is hard to tell customer you didn't do anything wrong when they have assomething that doesn't work.
