I agree with others that people feel intimidated with cutting "the pretty cake" as well as not knowing  what do you do with the fondant.  Do you peel it off or try to eat it.  To some people fondant doesn't look appetitizing or they have never experienced a fondant covered cake.

Just to add my story to this thread, now it's been resurrected :-)

A young woman in my church recently had a baby and the women in our church take turns to bring new mothers/families meals for the first two weeks.  When it was my turn I thought I'd take the opportunity to try out a new flavour combination on a cake for their dessert (lime cake with lime curd and coconut buttercream).  I quickly decorated it but didn't take too much care as it was just a wee thing for their dessert.  Turns out, they loved it so much (they're very sentimental) and refused to cut it.  They've now bought some preservative spray to coat it so that they can keep it!

I keep thinking that if I'd known they'd want to keep it, I could have made a removable topper or something, and now I won't know how my new recipes taste!  I'll have to try again with someone else :-)

Here is the cake - I'm a bit embarrassed they want to keep it as I really didn't put much effort into it:

So do I live with a family of gluttons? ....when I took a caravan cake to my Dad's 80th, the first thing following the candle being blown out, was for him to 'cut' the cake...I'm sure the kitchen staff found the biggest bread knife they could, and he bisected it totally in half....all my family think cake are for eating....as soon as possible!!! 

They wanted to preserve the cake??  You could only keep it for so long even with the preservative. 

Well, we mustn't forget that mummified wedding fruitcake that recently came to light in (I think) the U.K.