Pretty sure the whole point of OP Return was to make that data pruneable.
Images were being stored on nodes at the time already, and OPReturn was a way to end that paradigm.
This was 11years ago btw.
Some battles never die it seems.
Discussion
What reason would any shitcoin scammer have to use op_return instead of saving on fees by using witness? There is none
Yes this isn't the main issue, it's the elimination of user preference by core.
That's a good point. If it can just be pruned anyway, there no reason to necessarily remove it either, right, unless it somehow hurts network performance?
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking me, but yeah this issue is less about what people can do with OP Return & more to do with Core eliminating user preference options.