> I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.

I mean... yeah? What consumer tech is that resilient? Maybe put a lanyard on the your phone and attach it to your belt, I mean..

They could make a toughbook style phone for people with such habits, but engineering a mainstream device for such resiliency is going to be overkill for most users and cause a lot of tradeoffs in size/cost/features.