I certainly don't have all of the answers here, but I do think the somewhat ineffable nature of this concept contributes to how at a business or societal scale we wind up optimizing for the wrong things–it's hard to describe, multi-factorial, hard to measure, so instead we optimize for things that deliver obvious measurable improvements. That line of thinking is how you wind up bulldozing a city center to run a highway through it: travel times fall 80%! The negative side effects are harder to measure.

The AC thing interests me as a topic–purely my opinion, but I do think that living in a very narrow temperature range changes your relationship with the outside world, and there's all sorts of good stuff to be done outside that's much harder to get motivated to do if the delta with what you're used to is too big.

As an anecdote: I mostly disliked hot weather in the past, but years ago when I got hooked on running, I found that I disliked the treadmill more than the heat, so I ran outside through a muggy NYC summer. It was miserable to get started but got a bit easier every year, and over time I've noticed, from the digital thermometer on my desk, that the temperature where I have to stop working and turn the AC on has slowly crept upwards. My running club puts on a 5k summer race series–if you'd asked me 10 years ago whether I'd want to run up a hill in the swampy Brooklyn heat every other Wednesday, I would have laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea–but today it is genuinely something I love, and has been a highlight of my year for several years now.

All that to say, your point about suffering for suffering's sake stands: I cannot sleep without AC above a certain temperature/humidity, and I don't see any reason to force myself to suffer through restless sweaty nights. On the flip-side, though... I have never had more visceral, euphoric appreciation for the comforts of modern life than after a cold and drizzly backpacking trip where we spent the entire time damp and never really, fully warmed up for multiple days. 20-something years later I have the most vivid memory of getting in a hot shower when we got home.