Bad skimming?

[stevethespreader]

I cannot see any posts of you describing anything, anyway hardly a nightmare , take a razor blade and run it around the plate

Caulking sockets is very bad practice. When you remove the plate the caulk will try to stick to it and will peel off the wall as you pull the plate away, dragging paint or paper with it. Caulking also looks bad since it creates a 'rounded' (and usually uneven) join between the plate and wall, and the colour and texture of caulk will never match the (presumably) white PVC. The plate should sit neatly on the face of the wall, not 'kinda glued to it'.

My opinion is it looks better than a gap and I have taken loads of plates off without having so called nightmares if it sits on the wall fine but any gaps where it's not flush I will run a bit of caulk round it yes of course it's better job if it sits good but it's not always the case

 

[Gerrydelasel]

so if there was a gap between the wall and plate he would leave it? Not every wall is straight and not every box is level I would rather fill than leave gap

Yes definitely.

On the right is a caulked socket. On the left is a socket after I removed the caulking, filled where the paint had flaked away round the edge, and repainted. As you can see, there is indeed a small gap. A nice, clean, unobtrusive gap. The right one still looks like a dog's dinner.

 

[stevethespreader]

Deleted

 

[stevethespreader]

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[phatboy]

If there is a gap the wall isn't flat, and needs filling to straighten it out