Oh yes, I suppose that appliances without sentience would just be considered husks to an average person. Then perhaps that CORE civilians would be raised to think that they are just another form of "functional clothing." It's a relatively odd culture that I haven't gotten down to explaining most of yet. :S
Maybe it's the difference between a "possessed" and non-possessed object... But that again relates to the creepiness factor. (You can barely tell the difference between a sentient and nonsentient appliance) (That said, the difference is probably that nonsentient appliances lack an "AI-Light", which denotes some sort of "soul" in the machine. For example, Camera has glowing blue lens, a regular camera would be grayed out.