Derek Paxton has commented on this in an earlier thread back in FE. He was very clear that cities should be considered resource PRODUCERS. The trade-off for creating something is measured the production necessary to build it. In LH you also have indirect tradeoffs from focusing a town on something like growing.
Of course there is no single answer and it depends on personal taste and what everybody likes more. I suppose that for people who like "realistic" games more like myself, not having buildings maintenance is something that could be improved. But what I want to point is that there are many games out there like Civ4 that have building maintenance and the maintenance does not make the game more complicated, unfun, or more difficult for the AI, on the contrary, it just adds an additional dimensión that makes the game deeper.
