The outfit handling the job pays a fee for the privilege, often bidding against competing crews. There's typically a finite time period to complete the salvage, which can include the removal of everything from hand-carved wainscoting to period bathtubs. Fortuitous finds Ecclesiastical items can be a challenge for salvagers to acquire and extract. For starters, there's the fact that the objects hold emotional and spiritual meaning to congregations. You don't just walk into a sanctuary with a pry bar and start wrenching out altar pieces.
Ecclesiastical objects tend to be bulky, too.
Confessionals can weigh hundreds of pounds. The cupolas that Architectural Antiques pulled from an Iowa church are beautiful, but aren't the sort of things you tuck under an arm and tote through a standard doorway. These buildings were built to last 300 years. No one thought these things would be removed. But all that is counterbalanced by the joy of discovery.