Calling someone with a disability a power user... grates.

There's a big difference between my productivity-enhancing .vimrc and not being able to use something. Half the devs seem to understand this.

Either way, it's a valid decision if Google decides not to implement the requested feature. But there's a difference between "We're not implementing a feature for power users" and "We're not implementing an accessibility feature for disabled users."

The whole point of ADA is that we should strive, where possible, to allow people with disabilities to live the same lives everyone else enjoys.

Yes, they admitted it wasn't for power users. Needing to click with your thumb instead of your finger isn't a power user feature, it's an accessibility feature. That's why everyone is complaining about it.

They made a conscious choice not to add power user features. They did not make a conscious choice not to add accessibility feature, it was just a knock on effect. Hence it not being deliberate.

I agree. The "power user" requirement here would be: needing to override/remap this behaviour in the OS, as opposed to having a specialist device with different buttons