Secret doors are silly.
This isn't a universal truth, but it is where we have arrived due to extreme overuse of the trope. When playing DnD or other similar games I can absolutely imagine secret doors being used in ways that are fun and immersive. In the creepy old manor occupied by a vampire there could be a secret prison located in the basement, but the only easy way to get there is a secret door located behind a bookcase that leads to a tiny stairway. That scenario works.
The problem is that somebody saw a secret door in a movie or something and decided that they had to put a couple of those in their DnD module. Then somebody else saw that, and decided to put six secret doors in *their* module. After years of this we are stuck with games that assume that there will be secret doors scattered everywhere, and no adventure is complete without them.
This progression takes the secret door from a memorable event to an annoyance. Searching every room for secret doors is drudgery, and leaves the game feeling stale. A secret door should be a singularly exciting event, not
"Okay, we search the room for secret doors. Not because we have *any* reason to think there is one, but becasue they are absolutely everywhere so we search everything for secret doors."
"You find a secret door."
"Fine, mark it on the map, moving along."
What great adventure, such excitement!
A good rule of thumb is that if the characters will never remember finding the secret door, nor care about where it leads, it shouldn't exist. Solving the puzzle to figure out which piece of the intricate fireplace to push on to get to the secret laboratory is a fine thing to do. Finding a generic secret door in a featureless wall that goes straight to the next room and which has absolutely no reason to exist is boring and pointless.
This is largely true of all kinds of things in gaming. If the players have an optimal choice that they should always take you should automate it away. This is especially true if making that choice takes time at the table to resolve and isn't exciting or fun. Figuring out a puzzle to open a secret door embedded into a fireplace - fun! Rolling to see if you find a secret door in every featureless chunk of wall - awful.
The solution is one that scenario designers and GMs have to implement. No secret doors unless they are rare, unique, and engaging. If you aren't describing something that catches player interest, and if they aren't legitimately surprised to find it, cancel that secret door and just put a regular door. I know that every scenario designer wants to surprise players with new and unexpected things. Unfortunately secret doors have been so overused that they don't fill that function anymore; we need something different and fresh to entertain our jaded, cynical brains.
Agreed.
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