Reduces BOM, manufacturing cost, board space needed, and battery drain to exclude it.
LEDs on phones were all the rage (at least one Blackberry model had an LED accessible by apps IIRC) until Apple took the market by storm and then everyone started copying their aesthetic.
> Ideally this light would be physically linked to the power going to the camera and the light would be impossible to disable without physically altering the device.
There's no way for you to verify unless you built the camera yourself or can remove the camera.
Even google, on it's nexus 5, had a LED. A prominent RGB LED that could do everything you ever wanted. Well, unless you relied on google for the software which if possible made it worse than if it hadn't existed.
Then you open up the phone to replace the dying battery. And behold, multiple SMA type connectors for external antennas(?) One wonders if a single person on earth found a use for them. Cost optimization don't seem to be that important.
Now for the camera LED I don't think phone manufacturers want to even admit that it is something anyone should be worried about. So their strategy is likely to pretend that there doesn't even exist any issues to worry about. Probably works out pretty well for them.
This makes a lot of sense as mobile phones are an extremely hostile RF environment. If it were any other way, the phone's sound inputs would be flooded with that iconic "cell phone interference" sound.
Old but still interesting:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+4+Microphone+Teardown...
What you describe as "no way" is a 2-second napkin sketch for any witting electronics hobbyist, let alone a proper design EE professional.