Maybe it’s just me, I can’t say I’ve ever had an instance where I wanted to walk around with my phone tethered to a battery pack.

It’s a reasonable concern though. I’m not even saying wireless would be a better option just that Apple doesn’t tend to like governments telling them what they can and can’t use so it seems like them to just ditch the wire all together. Personally as someone with a bunch of Lightning accessories and no USB-C ones I’m not really happy with either outcome.