I copy+paste liberally when it comes to comedy comics. ^^ Normally it's just one character/half a panel, but occasionally I get to copy+paste whole panels with very minor changes, and that's always fun:
I only physically drew panels 1 and 4, I think. The rest was just manipulation (I even copy+pasted the facial expression from 4 onto the next two panels, and just moved the eyes for the last one).
Although I think with comedy, especially in a simple art style like this, copy+pasting is more of a legitimate technique than just laziness or a time-saver. Like...the point of this visual gag is for the character to not move; to grudgingly accept the kiss and just silently simmer in fury. ^^ I could have drawn them organically each time, for its own sake, but it wouldn't really add anything of value to the comic.
With more detailed and serious comics, though...I actually lean towards 'explicitly trying to avoid having panels with a similar layout'. I don't have any disdain for the strategy; if you can use it without having panels look cloned, more power to you. It doesn't really work for me, though, since I'm not a 'full' digital artist.
Like, things like drawing whole libraries of pose 'mannequins' ahead of time and just pasting them in and drawing the character features on top...or even just copying one pose and reskinning it to be a different character-- as convenient as it would be, I can't do stuff like that. ^^; The time it would take to 'dress up' one mannequin with my pen-mouse would greatly exceed the time it would take to just draw it from scratch. Might as well make everything unique...
The only exceptions would be if the two characters look very similar (like in DotPQ...I talked about that in the extra material), or if they're drawn so tiny that all their features are just vague blobs anyway. :6
It WOULD be possible for me to take a pretty panel and use it in a later location with a different background and lighting...although I haven't had a chance to do that yet. ^^; Maybe someday, if I find I need a last-minute spacer panel...