Doors do add complexity, but the EDP is the biggest problem.
Complexity can be dealt with if you can jack up the aircraft and power the hydraulic system for troubleshooting…that is no easy feat when you have an EDP. If I bought that aircraft I would also buy a pair of tall jacks and a hydraulic mule. Those items unfortunately rule out a lot of otherwise useful maintenance arrangements, pushing you towards expensive dealerships who do not have the time or the will to deal with this kind of airplane unless in exchange for $$$$
Cessna improved the 210 over the years and progressively eked out the bugs until it became, arguably, the best all-around SEP sold in numbers.
The gear door system is one part that they did away with from 1979. A lot of earlier 210’s had their doors removed via STC, thinking that would solve their problems. Surprise: it did not. If you look at it carefully why should it? Door removal only took the doors themselves and their actuators, but those were only a fraction of the problem.
Knowing the system intimately, and my airplane has doors, I can say the issue is getting someone to take the time to troubleshoot and adjust it properly. Nothing a regular mechanic with the right tooling and a copy of the maintenance manual cannot do. Cessna still supports most of the parts. Once you do it right, it will not require readjustment for years.
A lot of airplane owners simply expected their airplane to go on for ever with minimal maintenance until misadjustments or misspeced parts (Cessna brought several improvement SB’s that some owners neglected to implement) caused untimely gear retractions. We are not talking multi-AMU SB s but rather 100$ SB’s.
Personally I think one of the reasons our airplane is faster than other P210s is the gear doors, maybe just 5kts but that is plenty on a long trip.
They also keep the wheel wells cleaner, and , best of all: the airplane is sleeker and more beautiful
You may want to read here for more insight about how some owners went through the pain of installing them back.
I found this pic somehow illustrating the difference. The colour pic is a door-less aircraft. The b&w shows a partially retracted doored-airframe vs a door-less retracted unit.
Compare the colour pic above vs this one of a similar doored airframe
