Exactly. Even for this small board, the IC has 0.65mm spacing of the LGA pads. It would be pretty difficult to assemble it without solder mask.
Almost everyone who has the experience of etching a board, or even using a router to automate making one, and also has the experience of ordering a PCB, never makes one by hand again.
They are lower quality, but you actually made them yourself, and that comes with a satisfaction that cannot be gained from sending a drawing to China.
Edit: and many perfectly useful projects use through hole components. Not everything of value had a microprocessor
The problem isn't that people outsource it, it's that they need to outsource to China. That's an abject failure of domestic PCB manufacturers who simply don't want to deal with retail customers.