the power supply should be connected to high-current parts with wired contacts, or preferably bus bars, in the chassis. there should never be any mandated visible wires between the power supply and computer components. all power connections should be combined with the mounting standard. your GPU shouldn't catch fire because your power supply manufacturer soldered a Molex connector wrong.
no expansion cards should be supported mainly by a slot connector. there should never be any reason to have a "GPU prop" in your case. You shouldn't have to worry about your fucking graphics card sagging because everyone forgot how to make horizontal cases.
server manufacturers achieved much this long ago. pull one of the power supply from any Poweredge and you'll find a high-current edge connector. but ATX is a shoddy, slapdash standard with almost 40 years of technical debt. and we will never be rid of it, because of gamers
EDIT: and also because BTX flopped back in the netburst dark ages
- Any new standard is an opportunity for vendor lock in. Everyone wants to be apple (derogatory) nowadays and sometimes a flawed but relatively open and common standard is better than trying to replace it. See BTX.
- Running a bunch of rinky dink cables around is probably cheaper than:
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- An enclosure full of rinky dink cables with contacts that mount directly to the various components
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- A PCB of any sort capable of handling current
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- Actual Big Solid Bus Bars
- We literally had some sort of full length card standard and people sold cases with mounts to hold the GPU in the case and no one cared
Yeah ATX is not ideal for many reasons but I can't see it being replaced without things getting way more expensive or creating weird fucky lock-in. Look at ATX12V and the... asus? motherboard prototype with a big power connector on the board.
Also cable messes are fine as long as they're not an actual fire hazard (read: very low quality cables or very silly new connector standards). That third picture is 100% fine, there is nothing wrong with it. If you don't like how it looks then close the case and/or put it somewhere you can't see it.