Personally, I find little use or benefit to a patch panel in a home install.
If using the correct connectors (ones rated for solid wires, or more typically for both solid and stranded wires, rather than the ones rated only for stranded wires) plug connections are quick and easy, and there's two fewer places to fail (the patch panel jack and the patch panel end of the patch cable.) I've seen enough patch panel jack failures to be wary of them when I don't need them.
However, I own and use an RJ-45 crimper (and I can prepare and crimp a cable about as fast as I can punch one down.) If you do NOT own and use a crimper, you might prefer to be able to replace patch cables rather than having to re-terminate a wall cable, in the event that a cable did fail. Cheesy plastic punch-down tools are typically thrown in in for free with jacks, and a decent quality punch-down tool is cheaper than a decent quality crimper if you want to have better tools to fix your own network if it breaks.
In the vast majority of home installs, nothing moves in the network closet, so the arguments based on "cable movement, cable flexing, cables breaking at the wall due to flexing" are based mostly on imagination. Likewise with repatching - it pretty much never happens in a home. The only time I've seen cable damage not right at the connector is when a cable is run out of the wall to an end-user computer. Otherwise it's nearly always within 4" of the end of the cable, and usually right at the plug - and only for plugs that are actually moved on a frequent basis. I have seen "a bundle of cables run right into a switch" break "at the wall" exactly... never - but I've only been in this line of work for 30-odd years.
As for aesthetics, I find no real benefit - first, it's in a closet, not in the center of the living room wall. If you don't have to look at it, looks don't count. Second, a whole cluster of patch cables is ultimately about as messy as a whole bundle of cables coming from the wall. Labeling is easily managed with wire labels directly on the wires.
I'm with your subcontractor - if you'd rather have it, more profit to her or him. And kudos to him or her for not simply trying to hard sell you on it so as to gain the profit. And if you really, really want to make it fancy and nice looking, consider the living room wall, rather than hiding it in a closet...
Additional Note: With the advent of 5GHz wireless, which goes through walls poorly, and wireless devices proliferating, a jack in/near the center of the ceiling is often beneficial in each room.