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I think I follow you.
You are talking about transitions from one scene to another rather than cutting that occurs within a given scene...
Example A, Transition between a scene: We are on the forest moon of Endor and we have just been through a big chase scene and we come to where Luke, Han and gang all discover Leia's helmet... transition using a wipe to a scene on the death star in orbit above.
Example B, cut in the scene: Long shot of soldiers walking in the forest, we cut to a close up of one of the soldiers wiping sweat from his brow...
There are a number of methods of transitioning from one shot to another or one scecne to another: cut, wipe, iris, cross fade, fade to white or black, dissolve, etc...
Gererally speaking iris and wipe are not used all that much in today's filmmaking unless they are trying to evoke a feeling of nostalgia. This is because these methods were more common in the early days of filmmaking... more due to the technology of the day than anything else. The iris (either opening a scene by starting with a dot of light in the middle and having it open to show the whole scene or vice versa) was a direct result of how early cameras worked to open the lense of the camera. The wipe was a simple editing trick that can be done when working with physical film (as opposed to working digitally as we do today). It allowed a transition to occur in smooth manner.
Editing is a real science and a large part of the story telling is told to you by the way a film is edited.
What you are describing is probably a case where in the beginning of a film, the filmmakers are trying to ease you into a story... They are setting everything up and as a result do not want a frenetic pace to the edits... cross fades, long takes (i.e. any given shot last a long while) can acheive this.
As the film moves through the story arc and the action and the plot have moved along to a point where they want to heighten the action or create tension... the pace of the editing will likely speed up... this can be achieved with hard cuts, shorter shots, a quick succession of short shot.
When this is done well, the average person never notices it, in fact shouldn't notice it. Traditional narrative editing is really both and art and a science... it is the language filmmakers use to tell their story.
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