Reminds me of listening to an engineer justify removing a $5 protection IC (after component-shortage inflation) as the thing it was protecting was $3.
No, if that $3 part takes an ESD discharge, the entire $1000+ assembly is now (as far as the customer is concerned) scrap and needs to be RMA'd and replaced or repaired at our expense and the customer will, quite correctly, think it's unreliable junk from now on.
Even if it was just a $5 part protecting only a $3 part, it still makes sense to keep it. The logistics of returns and customer support for even a small percentage of returns would potentially be worth it.
That would need careful cost-benefit analysis. My instinct is to keep the protection or find a way to retrofit cheaper/available parts too maintain it. But then I'm not in the cheap and shonky consumer tat business.
No, if that $3 part takes an ESD discharge, the entire $1000+ assembly is now (as far as the customer is concerned) scrap and needs to be RMA'd and replaced or repaired at our expense and the customer will, quite correctly, think it's unreliable junk from now on.