I'm amazed that another A/V 'Nut' would call someone out who choses to be thorough with their wiring setup instead of supportive. I know that I personally have over 100 different wires coming into my head end with 10 network locations, 10 phone locations, incoming and outgoing cable feeds and antenna feeds along with 5-wire RGBHV feeds to multiple rooms and control wiring throughout.
Not only is labelling wire important in a serious head end situation, it is incredibly critical to ensuring a quality setup that works properly the first time.
While, for some, this may seeem silly as they look at their 5.1 speaker setup and wires running across the floor, for others, with wiring that can't be easily traced, and is not easily distinguishable... and may be one or two of twenty or thirty wires with 'unknown' destinations, it is perhaps the single most important thing that can be done during an installation.
One thing I did was to use a Sharpie, but then I terminated a lot of my wiring to the wall inside the head end area. Distributed audio goes to speaker banana plug plates all labelled with my $30 Brother P-Touch labeller and all the cat-5 jacks are marked with the room they go to. The wires themselves I stuffed behind the wall, but they still have their Sharpie hand written labels on them for destinations in case those wires are ever removed.
For some, it may never seem necessary, for others, it is one of the best things you can do. Since I work for a pro company I'm going to be using printed labels on all my cables at some point... Just need to buy a cartridge of labels for it.
