Is 12 volt off grid solar out of date?

Most people opt for a 48 volt solar power system if presented with a choice between 12 or 48 volt.
My 12 volt diy off grid solar power system still works and requires little maintenance. As long as the sun shines, I can cook, boil water, operate power tools and charge batteries. There is little incentive for me to change. Why fix something that is not broken.
I have a little over 500w of solar panels, 500 Ah LiFePO4 batteries and a 3000w sine wave inverter.
12 volt solar panels work just fine in parallel and is safer than high voltage systems with solar panels in series. Batteries that are connected in series tend to go out of balance overtime because the bms in each battery can’t communicate with each other.
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[@Luke-san]

Still up and running it seems. Same here. Panels sometimes are cheap now. Bought a 150 Watt one here at 45 euro delivered, like 48USD, and it really works great. It's from a not so known brand and it looks exactly the same as my 100 Watt Renogy one. It also delivers the stated output.In short I should have bought 3 or so. Reason most go to 48V is that those higher voltage panels are seriously cheap and losses over cables are less. Also I've seen 400 Watt panels go for like 85 euro, while that is the price of a 100 Watt 12V (read 18V) panel. I've been thinking about buying 1 of those and finally getting a Victron controller. They might be a bit more expensive but the ones I know that have them will only buy those in the future.
Also the only thing I did to my panels was add Schottky diodes in series so no panel would inject voltage into another panel.

[@wtam69]

Sure I’d go for 48v if I were to start afresh and most would. I thought my 120w panel is cheap already but yours are even cheaper. My panels are all assorted brands and so are my batteries. Not exactly the thing to do but they are still functional as long as they are in parallel. The more limiting factors are the amount of sunshine you get and how cold it gets in the winter. So far so good and I’m glad to hear from you again. May the sunshine be with you always.