Deploying servers with PXE is fun though. We use PXE and XCAT to manage our fleet. Commissioning ~200 servers in 15 minutes with three commands while sipping coffee is really satisfying.
It doesn't put a "customized image of some sort" on servers, it literally iterates through installer steps with the autoanswers provided by preseed file.
You might say that it is customized since we wrote a preseed file. Well maybe, but it's not a "customized image". Also we didn't write any specific code to remove unwanted packages. It just doesn't install them. No weird packages like byobu :)
I say all this above, but I'm sure there are still shops out there burning ISOs to CDs (maybe USB now!) and hand installing everything - if I've learned anything, it's that nobody seems to agree on how to do stuff the same way. :) Each company is it's own beautiful unique snowflake full of their own design and deployment patterns.
We use it everywhere in my current place of employment and are very satisfied with it.
(maybe it's because we deploy servers using pxe — it makes good ubuntu installs, with no ads in motd & no snapd)