Fully agree there, but have you gone down the N gauge knitting route? I have, on my N gauge winter project layout - it is great when properly set up but a pain cleaning the track. Swiss locos have very narrow pantograph heads so the tolerance is not great and on sharp curves dewirement happens easily. On the real thing the wires come down, on the model it tends to be the pantograph that suffers. Expensive too!
For G I imagine the wires, electrics always run with pans up. I don't think catenary would last long against the mower and the local cat population, given my ground level line.
Mark