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Not sure if this is flawed, but I want to attempt an analogy that felt right to me.. Let's say they figured out catching a thief cost £500 and it became public knowledge the police wouldn't investigate any theft under £500. The cost of transitioning to the £1 seems worth it to prevent further abuse.

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Your analogy is flawed because you are discussing investigating a crime that has been committed. The purpose of the new coin is to prevent the crime from being committed in the first place by making it harder to commit.

Given the expense of rolling out the new coin, it probably makes more sense from a economic and moral point of view to spend money investigating these crimes rather than preventing them.

> Let's say they figured out catching a thief cost £500 and it became public knowledge the police wouldn't investigate any theft under £500.

Is this not already true? When my laptop was stolen, I was advised "don't bother reporting it to the police".

It might well be true, but the police themselves can't say that it's true in an irrevocable way. The recent indie film "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore" is an entertaining consideration of this scenario.

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