I guess it's a form of being able to vote with your wallet; forcing the manufacturers to spend additional money/time on QC.
Having the option, even if rarely used, is a good signal to bean counters that cutting corners on safety or quality or even leg room is unacceptable.
It's probably a big uphill battle due to industry lobbying, but I expect it's possible if there were enough popular support.
That's the same for buying a super sturdy SUV for commuting. Your overall chances of getting into an accident where you'll be crushed between two semi is astronomically low, but many people will still choose that option over just a normally safe car.
The question comes down yo how much they'd bare disruption to assert that choice, and it doesn't look to me like a costly or super problematic choice here
And as you said. Force them to clean their act up.
I’m not sure a pilot who has never flown the type is really any better positioned to judge this than anyone else, but I do think that if he feels that way, a whole lot of non-pilots do too. If you know pilots you know they are not a cautious lot generally. While they get a metric shit-ton of caution trained into them, there are a whole lot of cowboys in the flying world.