You haven’t even gotten to the power issue.

I’m in favor of back compatibility but it has a hidden curse: you can plug your expensive external drive into your laptop with a USB 2 USB-C cable and it will work. But glacially. That can be a lifesaver (“at least I found a canoe that works so I can get that file”) or a nightmare (“I bought this expensive drive but my backup never finishes even overnight”).

“Silent success” can be as bad as “silent failure”.

(I read the e markers out of cables and PD out of power supplies and the results are sometimes inconsistent with the packaging. But essentially nobody has the time or equipment to do that)