The thing is, everyone wants to protect their $600 “investment”. So if you make the phone bigger so that it’s more rugged, people will still put it in a case to

The thing is, everyone wants to protect their $600 “investment”. So if you make the phone bigger so that it’s more rugged, people will still put it in a case to protect the housing. So now the rugged phone is just massive and no one wants to carry it. Now, if the rugged bits of the phone were easily and cheaply swapped, that would probably make it more appealing. But I can buy a new case for my phone for $10, so it’s hard for the rugged version to compete effectively.