My experience is that the "whatever reason" to remove features is that they're a pain to maintain (often in ways that aren't obvious to the end user) and only a

My experience is that the "whatever reason" to remove features is that they're a pain to maintain (often in ways that aren't obvious to the end user) and only a tiny number of people use them. It sucks for the people who do use them (and believe me, I have been in that position myself), but it also sucks to not have new development happen because all of the resources are being consumed maintaining something that 10 people care about.