It is just hard for me to imagine...my builder was soooo careful to explain things to me that might be aesthetically irritating, and tried to mitigate. He explained all of the air return locations and made sure I was ok with them, and he even made sure I knew that the glass in our custom door would have those tiny little "tempered glass" engravings in the corner of every pane....didn't want me caught off-guard. I absolutely cannot imagine a builder that could put the electrical box by the front door and not realize it would look terrible and pi$$ the owner off. At the least, he should have warned them when presenting the bid that it would look like that and would cost x$ more to move BEFORE they signed. My builder would be embarrassed having his name on a house where the electrical box was next to the front door. That is crazy.

There are some petroleum based cleaners that sometimes have to be used to clean grease and oil. It would not be advised to use these in the washing machine or dryer. But that's one reason there's usually a big sink in a laundry room. Also, mixing some of these chemicals can be nasty (normally you wouldn't, but mistakes can happen). I'm not really thinking of a specific scenario, but rather, being exceptionally cautious. As for the upside down issue, consumer grade panels do seem to have always a horizontal main breaker. I guess that's because the main breaker is factory installed, so it's horizontal so it can still be inverted and be OK. Personally I'd rather use MLO panels and a separate main box. But that can get expensive. If hanging a painting over a panel is a violation, then I suppose maybe closing a wooden door over a panel is, too. I don't know what the point is other than making sure it's easy to find. A painting is easy enough to remove; certainly nothing permanent should ever block access. But the tendency is nothing at all should block access. Well, a door would block access even if it is a door to a utility room. Of course, if you are looking for a panel, you might expect it to be in some room, and search all the rooms (and garage, and where the wires come in). I can just close off that hallway and make it be the utility room. That hall in a few of my tenative plans has no important use besides utility access. At least it would have 2 paths of egress. I'm designing the floor layouts for 3 panels, some with all 3 at the entrance, and some with 2 of them placed elsewhere as subpanels. Telecom, security, and lighting controllers, would most likely be with the panels.

"I put the ties on my garage doors. Then those posed a problem for me during a power outage. Possibly a problem in case of fire. My garage ceilings are almost 10 feet tall. A ladder and cutting tool should be kept at hand in such instances." Most people keep their tools in the garage so having a pair of cutters close by is not a problem. Just make sure family members know what to do. I can easily reach the wire tie on mine. Of course, having tools in the garage also works out well for the bad guys once they get in there. Makes it so much easier for them to get into the rest of the house. Adds insult to injury for the homeowners. Upon closer examination I'm starting to see that moving the panel to the inside of the garage wall would be easy. All the wiring enters from the top through one conduit within the wall, so in theory it could be rotated around to face the inside wall and remounted without even having to rewire it (after cutting the power of course). I still need to check with some electricians and see about permits and follow-up inspections, plus how to re-stucco the outside wall.

Can you make it flush. Certainly. How much...well there's not enough in that picture to tell. I would say $2000 would be roughly in the range to just set it flush in that wall (provided there's not some hidden reason why this wasn't done in the first place). Have some electricians come out and get bids and references.