While I get what you are saying, it really is catering to a niche market. The AV receivers are built to hit as many people as possible for the money. As soon as you remove any HDMI inputs, you aren't actually making things less expensive, but MORE expensive.
That's because you aren't going to be selling as many of those receivers, which significantly increases cost. This is most of the reason why smaller brands tend to carry higher price tags even though their quality rarely is better than what Denon and Yamaha already deliver.
It's also why features like multi-channel output aren't included and available on most receivers. They certainly have the space for it, but it adds cost.
At the end of the day, the biggest issue is, as has been said, the extremely high rate of unreliability of TV manufacturers and the complete and total screwup which is HDMI in general, but more specifically in terms of things like ARC.
There are times it works perfectly. But, Yamaha doesn't want to have to depend on LG or Sony to make a TV properly. In fact, it's pretty well established that certain very standard audio formats (like DTS) are not being supported by TVs this year and can't send those formats back across eARC.
Why? Because the TV manufacturers don't want to pay for that licensing.
So, the type of features (video related) that you don't want to pay for in a receiver and the same things the TV manufacturers don't want to pay for on the audio side of things.
NOW: Can you imagine a average Joe trying to figure out what is what? Especially when manufacturers are so piss-poor at being upfront about all the specifics of what their product can, and more importantly, can't do?
With all of that, there is also a lot of setup which needs to occur inside of an A/V receiver, so why even bother with the on-screen setup if you don't need it? Except, then you end up with a more powerful speakerbar... and I've setup some speaker bars that don't have any auto-calibration settings. They don't have a clear way to test the different channels. We are literally pushing A/V receivers back 15 years to the days when they didn't have an on-screen display to work off of. Yes, I suppose it could still put out video just for the setup. But, that's an added cost.
Be realistic.
The current entry level A/V receivers with multiple HDMI 2.1 inputs and outputs (even though it's broken) are just a few hundred dollars.
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The licensing and costs associated with video, from a receiver, and almost nothing. Plus, it allows you to connect all the stuff which isn't using ARC right inside your equipment cabinet with the receiver.
If we are going to have something to complain about, it would be that I can buy a decent 5.1 channel receiver for $400. For 150 bucks more I ramp it up to 7 channels and put in Atmos. But, I can't get a receiver with FULL 7.2.4 audio processing with appropriate preouts for anywhere near that price. That's perhaps the most infuriating part of all that I've seen in receivers. I don't need 10 HDMI inputs. I just need full audio processing in an inexpensive receiver.
