I realize it comes across like I'm super worked up over something no one cares about, but I don't hate the key, I just think it's a waste of space on modern keyboards, and that we should collectively reconsider its purpose. Considering the amount of time we all spend on our computers nowadays, any little efficiencies on their input devices could have a pretty large impact.
I'm also someone who gets really passionate about bad design in everyday life and I have strong feelings about the way I think everyday things should be designed.
On my old laptop, I remapped the key to a new kind of modifier key and made the JKLI keys behave like ←↓→↑ keys when Caps Lock was pressed down. It sped up my casual text input a ton, and that was the first time I started really thinking about it more deeply. I did an HCI study during my undergrad to try and prove that an alternate use for the key could help people input text more efficiently, but it was inconclusive.
I also want to make a Mac app that would turn Caps Lock into Emoji Lock, where it would toggle between normal input, and emoji input. Something like this: https://i.imgur.com/Z5dDVUn.png
I know a lot of people on this site probably don't use emojis very often, but a ton of Mac users do, and the existing methods for typing emojis on macOS (and Windows) are still super awkward and clunky. Unfortunately I don't know how to code macOS apps and I've got too much on my plate right now, but hopefully sometime in the future I'll get around to making that.
And if I'm being 100% honest, I partially wrote this article so that if Apple does indeed replace the key on future keyboards, it'd make me look really good at predicting the future ;)
Anyway, thanks for your feedback.