True. I typically pin all the apps I regularly use with spacers to categorize them, so there’s maybe half an icon of left/right movement maximum with the odd unpinned app at the end, but I understand that trades in clutter others may not find desirable and doesn’t fit all workflows.

On top of @psilotop@lemmy.world’s bit about monitors today being bigger, multi-monitor setups are also more common. I haven’t used a single monitor system as one of my main PCs (work or personal) in at least a decade. Being able to “slam” down and left to hit Start is a big part of why the corner was originally chosen, but if that’s just gonna get you to some random position on the bottom of an adjacent monitor, you’re back to requiring mouse precision, and the button may as well be moved more toward the center to get average travel distance down.

Wow, I’m really glad this topic came up. As a recent convert from Windows, it’s still muscle memory for me to yank out a flash drive as soon as the copy dialog completes. (Yes, I know ejecting a drive first is still the proper thing to do on Windows, but skipping that has not been an issue once in hundreds of cases.)