Patching and Plastering - Plaster over real wood paneling?

In my living room and kitchen, I have wood walls. Not that veneer paneling stuff, but something that looks like 1X2s lined vertically. It's really ugly. Rough, uneven. Very cabin-in-the-woods look which is out of place in my Victorian. Painting will leave very obvious lines. I'm afraid to tear it all down because all of the outlets and switches are on top of the wood. And it goes behind my kitchen cabinets.
My thought was to plaster over the boards. From what I've read, you are supposed to have a smooth surface for plaster. Does that really matter? I'm not going for a totally smooth surface look. I think the bumps and even swirls or whatever in the plaster would add to the character. I just don't want the "painted over wood" look.
Any suggestions/advice?

Anything you put over this wood will crack. Every joint will crack and that wood will expand and contract forever and crack the surface. I would remove the paneling.

If I take down the paneling, how do I make the outlets and switches flush with the wall? Since the rest of the house is plaster, I'm assuming that plaster is behind the paneling as well. And besides sob uncontrollably, what can I do to repair the numerous holes left in the plaster by nails, assuming that it can be repaired?

Maybe all is not lost. How old is your house? There are some investigative things you can do. Take off some cover plates and look around some of them and see if you see plaster behind the wood. I think at a certain period in history that gypsum lath was used under panelling without plaster. if you should be so lucky then all you have to do is make sure all the nails are pulled, that the lath is fastened securely and plaster it. More likely there is either gypsum panelling no panelling or plaster behind the wood panelling. How thick is the panelling? 3/4", 1/2", or 1/4" If it is in the 3/4 to hal range you could drywall over what you have with 1/2 drywall or 5/8 drywall and come colse enough probabaly to use the existing boxes. The cover plates allow for a little over or under lap.