Yeah, a few other options that were suggested were (1) tap a power source in the fuse box and use a ground in the back or (2) tap into a power source in the hatch.

Couple of reasons I went the route I did.

1) As you can see, running power the way I did turned out to be easy and fast once I did a bit of research and thinking. It prob took an hour total including pulling all the panels etc.

2) I don't like tapping into the OEM harness. Worry about long-term issues. May be irrational, but I'm a worrier :-).

3) I already had a properly-done fuse block in the front for exactly this sort of thing (constant power) so it was also easy to just connect to that.

4) This will be easy to troubleshoot if anything ever goes wrong.

5) All the interior parts I touched were easy to take out and replace ... the hatch requires touching the headliner which is harder to put back.

But that's just me. Lots of people have used the hatch for power just fine.