A very long time ago
A very long time ago, but still in the 13 Amp era, someone came up with the bright idea of having , a deep skirting board, which held a power busbar system. When you needed a power point at a particular place, you simply plugged in a special socket. Intervening gaps were simply covered by trunking. Needless to say it never caught on and we have the present and getting on for a hundred year old system of wires poking out of the plaster