I don't see such a niche use case as a design failure. By your logic, the lowercase "v" should extend even higher to meet the pipe. The caret has conventionall

I don't see such a niche use case as a design failure. By your logic, the lowercase "v" should extend even higher to meet the pipe. The caret has conventionally been higher for a long time, and IMO would look out of place making it the inverse "v". If you want arrows, just use U+2191 and U+2193.