You still see those adapters frequently because this stupid decision would hobble usb C adoption (since it would prevent you from making a usb C peripheral with backwards compatibility for usb A using an adapter) so manufacturers have largely ignored that part of the spec
I sometimes see nonstandard A to A cables, however, possibly for the same reasons you’ve mentioned above, but I think it’s usually a cost-saving measure and perhaps easier to implement type A female connectors rather than mini/micro type B, but I have no experience with designing devices, only operating and repairing them.
What is your experience with devices that are backwards compatible with an adapter like you describe? Do you have an example of one, because I can’t think of any, not that I doubt they exist.
If it has usb A male, it can connect to a large number of computers, but nothing from Apple recently. If it has a usb c male, it can connect to recent Apple computers but has limited ports on other computers and can't connect to older computers.
If it has a usb-c and a usb-a male to usb-c female dongle (often attached to the little bit of cable between the device and the plug), then it will work with everything.
If you clip off the dongle, then you can use it to connect usb c male devices to usb-a female ports in lots of useful applications. It violates the spec, but it's super handy. If you have a usb a male to usb c male cable, you can use the forbidden dongle and the allowed cable to make a forbidden usb a male to usb a male cable which is probably not useful for much.
One of my favorite YouTube creators, DIY Perks, made a video about converting USB connectors to USB C which is very well done, as is their usual standard of quality.
Things expecting to be charged/powered by usb tend to have female ports --- phones, rechargable video game controllers, espX boards, that sort of thing.
The use case I mean is the same as the other commenter mentioned, devices with a captive male USB c cable, the notable example for me personally is docking hubs, two of the three brands my work recently procured have got one of the other IT teams in a tizzy, because the procuring team didn't realize that the included c to a adapters were problematic. For one brand the adapter was permanently attached to the cable too, I wonder if as a mitigation for the chance of misuse?
But the general case is devices with an integrated male USB c cable