I get that getting rid of touchid haptic eliminates dead space but still blows my mind they couldn't or refused to figure out screen-based touch id as an option at least. Samsung has it...

Under-screen fingerprint readers are definitely inferior - slower and less reliable. I (Android user) wish they'd revert to back-of-device readers, which were amazing.

(I also wish for smaller screens and no-adhesive battery swaps though, neither of which seems likely to happen.)