I think the point is you don't have to give a complete BOM that includes where you got the power cables. Each scientist has to decide what amount of information needs to be conveyed. Of course this can be abused, or done sloppily, like anything else.
A place where you can spread out more is in dissertations. Mine contained an entire chapter on the experiment, another on the analysis, and appendices full of source code, schematics, etc. I happily sent out copies, at my expense. My setup was replicated roughly 3 times.
