Read article 90 of the code. The purpose of the code is safety. The code does not care about convenience, costs, or reliability, just safety.
GFCI's are safer than non-GFCI's, period. So they are required where it is probable that a person may come in contact with electricity and a grounded surface, such as the concrete floor in your garage. So the GFCI may trip, and your beer get warm, or the food in your freezer may spoil... Tough. The fact is that your daughter going into the garage and standing on the concrete floor with her bare feet does not get electrocuted when touching the faulty refrigerator that is plugged into a GFCI protected circuit.
While talking about what MAY happen. I read about a family whose power went off while they were away. The food in their freezer thawed, but re-froze when the power came back on. The whole family died from food poisoning. A GFCI that tripped off during the power failure would have saved them. GFCI's cause some problems but save lives. I do remember when we first started installing GFCI's. All of the same complaints that we hear about AFCI's were made regarding GFCI's.
The code is not perfect, but how do you decide what safety devices cause a "hardship". There will be situations where the "improvements" will put a job out-of-reach for some home-owners. How do you decide when a person can "afford" to meet code?
The fact is that the code must be applied to all installations or it just doesn't work.