Aristotle said: "what does not add, detracts." I firmly believe this; remove cruft wherever possible. Bloat is bad, and stands in the way of clean & elegant abstractions that can be built upon. Consequently, I think that removing HTTP 418 is good.
Would you take away the interior, glass, electronics, some of the metalwork on your car, etc etc, just to have the most efficient vehicle possible?
Optimization is good, but you shouldn't push for it uber alles for generalized and multifaceted uses.
No, he didn't.
And I think this is a non-healty way of thinking and should be cured.