I think people often talk past each other there, because Malervlies is unfortunately used as a term for so many different things (even the floor covering fleece is called that). I’m talking about really heavy (150g/m² upwards) cellulose-based fleece that is breathable and perfectly smooth to the touch. In my opinion, after painting it just looks like a smooth wall. Any surface texture is then from the paint roller. So unintended scratches etc. usually don’t occur with such Malervlies. In my house, I also don’t often drill holes in the walls just to end up with nothing on the wall there. But yes, I think you’d probably see a patched spot more than on a wall that’s already completely patched. But it would also depend on an experiment, whether you could cut out a piece of Malervlies on a large scale, re-glue it, and repaint over it. At any rate, you also don’t see the seams after painting.
Yes, that must be it – probably the qualities sold under the label "Malervlies" vary so widely that you get very different results. Personally, I may only have seen inferior or poorly processed Malervlies so far (both here in the rental apartment and in a new build where it was still very fresh and new). Here I can clearly see where holes were patched, even though it has been completely painted over since then (by a professional, not by the previous tenant herself). And in the new build it didn’t look bad visually, but to me it still didn’t look like filler. The texture was definitely not from the roller but from the fleece itself. But that is probably largely influenced by exactly what was used.
For me, a wall has to be able to handle making holes and patching them up again without it being visible afterwards. For example, we have quite a lot of art on the walls that is often swapped out, rearranged, with different frames etc., and that happens quite often.
That’s exactly how you can do it. The difference you might see comes from the paint, which may look different than the paint that has been on there for two years. If you repaint the entire wall, it won’t be noticeable anymore. But that’s the case with any surface.
That’s obvious anyway, it doesn’t even have to be two years. Spot touching up is almost always noticeable, even if the paint has only been on for a week. But no one who cares about well-painted walls does that. You should always, willingly or unwillingly, paint the wall completely up to the next corner or door. As I said, the mentioned wall was completely painted, yet you can still see it. It is a texture problem, but maybe that doesn’t happen with every Malervlies.