Do caster out of combat options matter?

[Dr.Samurai]

Yeah, and in that same scenario if one of the PCs could cast plane shift they may have saved maybe a session and who knows how much in game time.

But also consider the "not so big barriers", players are exploring a unknown jungle and get to a huge chasm with a city floating in the middle, is flight the only conceivable option to get there? No. Is it the simplest one? Probably.

Sure but this is why my response was "it depends on the DM and players". Like... if it matters it matters, if it doesn't it doesn't.

It matters in the way that it matters that Frodo can't cast Teleport at the start of Fellowship of the Ring. They can still get to Mordor but it's going to be a harrowing journey and success isn't guaranteed.

Turns out that also happens to be the story and why we find it so entertaining.

And there's also all the sidetracking that ends up happening, maybe while doing the research for the planar portals the PCs come across some strange happenings in Candlekeep, and now the plane crossing adventures are on hold in favor of mystery solving in Candlekeep, because that's more appealing now.

Yes but this speaks to the point you made about player agency, which is why I replied that it goes further than that.

That is exactly how I try to design adventures, players with out of combat features will be able to access stuff that those without can't. If all players choose that then too bad. In an adventure I designed there was a ravine, I put a wooden suspension bridge over the ravine. But I made the bridge in a state of disrepair (because nobody had been there in years). The bridge could not support more than 300lbs, and some of the planks were rotted. The ravine was 30 feet across and 30 feet deep. The bridge could be reinforced to support more weight. The ravine could be climbed, and teleported across. Or even jumped across with a simple jump spell. There were tons of ways to cross the ravine. But the players all wanted to be pure-combat damage dealers and ended up having to take the long way around.

This sounds more punitive than anything. And I wonder... if the party happens to be all spellcasters, what do you do to ensure that there are consequences for that choice?

When I design an adventure and add a ravine, I don't then look at the player's sheets and think "wow they are not going to be able to cross this! I better add a bridge". Because A) they might surprise me, B) that would invalidate their choices.

But you do have to do something though, right? Because if they go around, you'll need to DM the surrounding region and any encounters they have that way, or if they decide to try and get mounts, you'll have to adjudicate that, or if they attempt to climb down the ravine and then back up on the other side, you'll have to do that. Or if they return to the quest giver that a ravine stopped them in their tracks, etc etc.

No matter what you will have to invent stuff to deal with the fact that your players don't have a spell that gets over the ravine you decided to put there.