On one of my early jobs with my msaon contracting, we worked on a house with the knobs in the center of the door. not every door, but on the front entrance and one room door. when we first started, there were no doors. about the time we were almost thru with the fireplaces, the doors were installed. On his first tip thru carrying mortar, my helper opened the front door and smacked himself in the face with the edge of the front door. Mortar went all over the just finished (whitecoat plaster) and the recently tiled entrance floor. Most of the tile had been covered with paper, but the bucket of "mud" managed to fly well beyond the protection. Luckily, we were able to clean up the mess quickly, before any permanent damage resulted.
i got into a big arguement with the carpenters about removing the door until the job was completed, atleast the masonry part. When the builder showed up, he agreed with me. He ended up in an arguement with the architect. The doors were not replaced with more conventional knob placements. We worked on other jobs for the same architect over the next few years, but never saw the center knob placement again.
Tinker