My proposed solution: go ahead and hide the http://, but when you click onto the address bar (and therefore want to edit the URL), show the http:// at that time.
This solves copy-paste issues, changing protocol issues, and probably others.
But I'm not sure where to make that suggestion on the Chromium issue tracker.
Just:
1) [F6] = Goes to the address bar and highlights the URL
2) [CTRL]+[C] = Copies the URL in it's entirety
3) [CTRL]+[V] = Pastes it back in the address bar, now with http://
4) [Home] = Go to the start of the line
5) [>][>][>][>] = Move beyond "http"
6) [s] = Insert the "s"
7) [Return] = Navigate
See! Google have already thought of this and this wonderful feature is available already.
PS: Down-voters are trigger happy, to them: This is a joke!
Still don't think it should be removed, though, just sayin' :)
Personally I don't see what purpose there could possibly be in removing it. The worst part is that it causes ambiguity about what will be copied (if the user was confused before about http they will be doubly confused when it magically appears after copying it).
Anyway Comment #24 makes a lot of sense http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=40865#c24 I see the enhancement for the end users who have NFI what http is but leaving it there provides more advantages as a whole than removing it.