I agree with the logic for children and residents, but less so for visitors.
One problem with visitors is that they can come in large hordes (sometimes literally, in the case of questor hordes, and performance troupes sometimes contain members that are described as having a non performer job), which makes it a pain to keep them set to appropriate working states. I wouldn't mind some kind of system where visitors could request permission to use workshops, though, as long as it's kept to a reasonable level (a fair bit less frequent that residence petitions, maybe down to a maximum of once per season or something like that), but in that case you'd definitely need to get more info than you get for petitions, such as e.g. skill level and what they want to produce. There'd also have to be some way for those jobs to be introduced into the appropriate workshops without too much trouble (inserting a "make steel mace" job won't work unless the workshop is also locked to allow only the requestor, for instance, so it would need a "personal" job type where the job is inserted into the workshop and tied to a particular individual, and the workshops would need some way to tag them for eligibility for those kinds of jobs (possible to modify on a per case or general basis from the request interface). Said individual would also have to jump to it immediately when the job appears (similar to NOW!, but without the negative thought) so the bugger doesn't spend half a year in a temple while blocking the workshop, only to then move on to the library for a reading binge for instance. If introduced, that kind of system might work to allow for citizens to satisfy some of their needs on their own without player micro management, though, although you'd probably have to permit/disallow materials, so they won't waste precious resources on their hobby dabbling.