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The trick, I think, is that the bar is only 'low' if you have the time, the right equipment, and are otherwise in a position to go that route. In a factory setting, where man-hours are expensive, it makes sense to set up to do it, but it's not a standard that makes sense for the one-off luthier.
One of my students did an incredible finish using Stew-Mac cans of spray lacquer, but he was already an expert with lacquer, having grown up with it, and painted custom cars and motorcycles. He'd probably sprayed more square feet of nitro by age twenty than most of us will in a lifetime. That's out of the question for me, if only because I've become so sensitive to nitro fumes over the years.
I had another student once who made sold body guitars, and had set up a legal spray booth. I don't know what the regs are where other people live, but I can say that, around here, complying with the law is not cheap. As a Damage Controlman in the Navy (a fireman aboard a floating bomb) I came realize that every safety reg out there, no matter how stupid it seems, exists because somebody died. Since then I've been strongly disposed to follow the regs. Frankly, it's not worth it to use a spray finish for the number of guitars I make in that case.
The problem is that the 'standard' finish is more or less built around the properties of things like nitro that can be applied by spraying. The standard also assumes that you're willing to build up a fair thickness of finish: Ovation's .040" of epoxy is extreme (you read that right; forty thousandths!), but even the .006" that's pretty normal in industry is more than I'd like to use. Keeping the finish under .004" calls for pretty dedicated surface prep, even when the finish cures and stops shrinking, quickly, as nitro and the newer UV cure finishes do. When you're using shellac or brushed varnish the whole thing gets harder.
Shellac is actually a pretty hard finish in some respects: Schleskie measured the hardness at about 1/3 less than nitro at the same thickness. These days, with the prevalence of catalyzed and UV cure finishes, nitro is considered 'soft'. Upcoming guitarists deal with 'bulletproof' coatings all the time, and don't learn to care for their instruments as they probably should. In my old shop we used to have players come in to try things and do damage in a half hour that took a month or more to fix, and no amount of cautioning them seemed to help. You can't do Flamenco 'golpe' on a cedar topped Classical guitar with no pickguard and French polish with impunity, and the player only has to forget and tap once. Thicker shellac would be more protective, of course, but the object is to preserve the sound with a thin finish.
Even with 'perfect' surface prep it's very difficult and time consuming to get a 'flawless' finish with varnish that comes up to the modern 'industrial' standard. Oil-resin varnishes require three months to more or less finish curing, and they shrink the whole time. Even with epoxy or CA pore filler you'll still see the pores unless you allow the thing to hang for three months or more between putting on the final coat and leveling it out. Most of us simply can't afford that.
So, no, from my point of view, the modern finish standard is not a low bar at all: not if I'm going to meet my standard for sound as well. The finish standard is there, and we have to do the best we can to meet it. After all, it doesn't matter how good the thing sounds if the people won't take it off the wall in the first place. I have to say that much of my effort for the past 15-20 years has been precisely in improving my level of finish, and at this point I don't feel as though I have to apologize for the results. But it's been a long slog, and it's still not the 'new Mercedes' look that people want. You know you got the finish 'right' when a fly tries to land on the guitar, skids off, and breaks his leg falling to the floor....
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