> ask a mid-career software engineer making 150k if they'd trade 10k/year to get an additional 10hrs/week of free time back, and I think a LOT would say yes.

Maybe a lot would. Although I could certainly afford it, I wouldn't. There are a lot of more useful/fruitful things I can put that money towards.

> is there something about American class psychology where it feels wrong to employee somebody to do this?

Personally, I don't think it feels wrong at all, nor is it a question of trust. For me, it's just that the cost/benefit ratio isn't good enough (the cost is more than just the financial outlay, and the benefit of gaining a bit less than 1.5 hrs/day isn't that much). That said, I have certainly hired people to come in once a week to clean my house before and could see doing it again if my time and/or energy budget demanded it.