>it is legally the owner’s responsibility to change the light bulbs of the recessed lighting

Maybe I'm misinformed, but I've literally never heard of that being a thing.

Even if that’s true, I wouldn’t be surprised if installation costs are more of an issue than anything else. Recessed lights are generally more complicated to install than other types of fixtures.

In older buildings, they can be more difficult to retrofit than traditional ceiling mounted fixtures.

Meanwhile, most high rise apartments have concrete slab ceilings. In that case, you need to build a soffit or a false ceiling to house a recessed fixture, which adds to costs and reduces ceiling heights.

The concrete slab issue is also why many high rise apartments have very few lighting fixtures (of any type) built into the ceiling in bedrooms and living rooms. Without some type of false ceiling, the electrical stuff needs to be built into the slab during construction in order to avoid having an ugly exposed conduit running along the ceiling.