I think the people making this sort of decision ("Should we kill X minor feature of Y product?") are quite a long way down from the top, and probably were engin

I think the people making this sort of decision ("Should we kill X minor feature of Y product?") are quite a long way down from the top, and probably were engineers themselves in the past. This isn't a "pointy haired boss" level decision. It's a trivial feature in a core product. It's much more likely it just needs someone to own it and no one wants to.