Looks like the conversation took a different turn, so I will offer my two cents.
I was with Boarder & the "keep the mortgage crowd" on maintaining our mortgage for the last couple years but a few life changes happened in the last few months. DH left his cushy $200K/yr job, we moved to another lower cost of living city for DH's passion project, had enough cash to buy a property outright since we would not qualify for a mortgage without actual income. So instead of renting, we bought a beautiful fixer upper property in cash, beautiful neighborhood, awesome central location, great school district for kiddos, and renovated it. Now that are officially debt free, honestly, I love it. I don't think I could do a mortgage again.
You only have one shot at life. Mortgage took up WAY too much mental clutter for me (e.g. do I pay it off? do we keep investing? is now the time to pull the trigger?). Life is simpler. It's just not how I wanted to live anymore. Even if we came out ahead financially by keeping a mortgage, there is a COST to keeping it (those constant conversations with DH about whether we should have pulled the trigger on the mortgage, internal thoughts, etc). Life is complex enough....we just did not want it anymore.
We are FI, still in our 30s, our annual drawdown is between 25-30K, we are below 4% SWR, and DH has high income potential going forward on something that he is crazy passionate about. You can tell me that I supremely effed up my life by buying a house in cash....but there is such a thing as enough. We are not gambling on our house. I could never go back. That feels too risky to us.
Also, I know that we are merely leasing the land from the government. Our property taxes are amazingly $800 and change per year.....so a very low threshold to avoid losing the house.
Maybe we could refi one day...but I don't see that happening. What would I do with that cash out refi? I would start constantly thinking about paying it off and those internal debates would start again. It reminds me of the story of the businessman and the Mexican fisherman... sorry, but this feels too good.