You're drifting from your original argument. Taking away features usually does make it harder for power users.

I don't think I am. Free Software does not suffer from the same authoritative restrictions imposed by proprietary software. If people don't like features being removed, someone will package the software without the feature removed, and everyone who cares about the missing features can just use that.

For example, people in this thread have been mentioning GNOME as software that has been removing features to the detriment of technically inclined people who want those features. But MATE exists, and I don't have to maintain it. Because someone else felt was worth spending to scratch their own itch.