Indeed, it is far more work to make the walls smooth. While the sheetrock is 'smooth', it is still paper and won't look perfectly smooth if it is just painted. So, to get a smooth finish you actually have to put sheetrock 'mud' on the entire panel after finishing the seam, then you sand that entire layer. Then, you put mud on the entire wall again and sand the whole thing. Then any imperfection at walk thru requires a huge area of re-finishing to make it right.
I would guess that it is someplace between 4 and 10 times the amount of labor.
The reason that old houses up north had smooth walls is that they did not have sheetrock, but most were plaster and lath. The lath was thin strips of wood that were nailed to the studs, then plaster (heavy mud) was applied across the entire wall several times and sanded.
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