Never a fan of splines, this might be a time I can put them to use - I'll give that a try.
Splines have been modified greatly in the past few versions. AutoCAD 2012 has great new advancements in the control of Splines.
...and most importantly, they're often easier to control graceful curves with - after the sweep has been made. A simple circle swept along a path will usually leave you with grips that allow you to modify the path -after- the solid has been created. I believe this holds true whether using SWEEP on a 3DPOLY or a SPLINE.
Another thing I've done to simplify modeling is to create the wire one plane at a time. This means the wire would be made up of several segments of solids. I did this back in the day before they added SWEEP, back when you had to use EXTRUDE with a PATH. I would model a polyline or arc, depending on the situation, and either FIT/SMOOTH (I forget the actual term, sorry) on the polyline, and then extrude a circle along that. If you think about it, most every wire can be made to look quite natural with only planar segments. It's laying on the desk = XY plane. It's going off the back of the desk, YZ plane. It hits the floor and runs to the wall/surge-protector, ZX plane.
Just a couple options that might make things easier and offer flexibility in modeling. The biggest thing you want to do is make sure the solids you make are easily modified down the line. In all my years of structural, metal fab, and even purely aesthetic/rendering targeted modeling, I found that I was overall fastest and happiest when I didn't have a bunch of "DUMB" solids out there.
I avoid the boolean commands such as SLICE, SUBTRACT, UNION, etc, like the plague. They -usually- result in stupid solids that are no longer modifiable other than via SOLIDEDIT commands that have an uber limited set of tools. AutoCAD has come a long way since these basic little boolean modeling methods and has a great set of parametric modeling tools that, if used properly, can create a super flexible and intelligent model that can be modified to suit revisions/changes/whims in just a few clicks or taps.