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I suspect that the reason bards don't have automatic proficiency progression in Performance and swashbucklers don't have automatic proficiency progression in Acrobatics is that the developers simply did not consider it important. They were willing to tax the character.
The bard is one of the original Pathfinder 2nd Edition classes, when Pathfinder 1st Edition was viewed as the standard. In PF1 maintaining a skill at maximum ranks costs a skill point every level. PF2 keeps some of that mindset, that the player must sometimes spend resources to keep the character good at what they do. The tight math of PF2 insists that weapon proficiency, spell proficiency, saving-throw proficiency, and Perception proficiency automatically progress not too fast and not to slow for the class, but skills are closer to a personal choice by the player. Lagging in a skill does not cripple a character. The bard's spellcasting DC and spell attacks, including compositions, have automatic proficiency progression, but bardic spellcasting does not depend on maximum Performance skill.
I understand that Bard doesn't necessarily key off of Performance for any of their main abilities unless they pick specific feats unlike the Inventor does with Overdrive, but the same can't be said about Swashbuckler who will always use Acrobatics or the other skill related to their style to gain Panache which is their main class feature. That being said if a bard is not upgrading their Performance proficiency then what kind of bard are they really (a caricature of one perhaps - though that I'd argue is a specific character concept and not the norm).
I recently had a player play a swashbuckler in a short campaign. The swashbuckler Blade Slinger had the Battledancer style, which works via Performance skill. Yet instead of maximizing Performance with his skill increases, he took the Acrobatic Performer skill feat and made the Battledancer's Perform checks with his Acrobatics skill. He did maximize Acrobatics. The player wanted Blade Slinger to be flamboyant, always leaping or swinging into action. The showiness of Battledancer appealed to him, but he had no interest in Performance beyound those leaps and bounds.
Building automatics proficiency progression in Performance into Battledancer style would not have interested the player. Building automatics proficiency progression in Acrobatics would have benefited the player, but he was so focused on Acrobatics that he had no complaints about spending his first skill increase on it. He did not care about delaying the advancement of any other skill until 4th level.
Furthermore, some classes are intended to be more skilled than others. Most classes gain one skill increase at every even level. Rogue and Investigator instead gain a skill increase at every level starting with 2nd level. That is 9 additional skill increases by 20th level. Those two classes are designed to be more skilled than average. An automatics proficiency progression in a skill offers 3 additional skill increases, denoting that the class is more skilled than average, but not as skilled as Rogue and Investigator. Are Swashbucklers supposed to be more skilled than average? Bards with Enigma muse gain Bardic Lore to make them more skilled with Recall Knowledge, and bards with Polymath muse gain Versatile Performance to move some social interactions to Performance checks, mimicking additional skill proficiencies without actually granting additional skill proficiencies. Apparently, some bards are supposed to seem a little more skilled, but not as much as an automatic proficiency progression would offer.
it'd be amazing if Paizo developers decided/were allowed to join this thread and disperse some of the fog around the topic....
P.S. I tried looking for a "Design questions" subforum but didn't find one. Please excuse me if I posted in the wrong subforum and move it to the right one.
I have been reading these forums since 2010. The developers used to comment and explain their reasoning behind the Pathfinder rules to resolve rules arguments here. They discovered that commenting from authority did not settle the differences of opinion. Instead, some people would start arguing with the developers themselves! The arguments grew more heated. Thus, the developers stopped posting. A few Paizo people, such as James Jacobs, will speak up in non-argument posts to share a little flavorful lore with the fans. But they avoid anything that could spark a flamewar.
Since they don't talk about design, we don't have a Design Questions subforum. However, if you are interested in design (I love game design), we have design discussions during the public playtests of new classes, such as this year's War of Immortals playtest back in September.
I have been wondering for a while why classes like Bard and Swashbuckler do not get automatic proficiency for their main skill (Performance and Acrobatics respectively) while Inventor gets free increases to their crafting skill at the earliest level possible when they could gain said increase with the normal skill increase choice.
My couple of thoughts:
Bard, Swashbuckler, Etc were created first. Inventor came later and was an experiment to see if automatically increasing important skills would cause the class to become too powerful. Also see the comparison in proficiency between Bard's Bardic Lore and Thaumaturge's Esoteric Lore.
Some skills are more generally useful than others. Getting automatic increases in Crafting or a limited use Lore skill that can only be used for identifying creatures (or upgraded with a feat to allow recall knowledge) is less valuable of a skill increase than an automatic increase to Acrobatics (which is what a lot of people want for Swashbuckler) or Athletics (which is what you are arguing for for a Gymnast Swashbuckler).