That stuff is usually done custom order first, for an individual setup, and remaining stock is sold on open market.

So if somebody needs some odd port setup, it's then carried on to boards sold on mass market.

Taiwanese used that "dual track" trick for a long time. Have B2B clients pay for RnD, and tooling, and then make money for free on it in OEM side of your business.

"Dual track" is how most enterprise SaaS fund feature development, especially in the early days.

Customer keyboard people will sometimes buy outrageously priced aviation connector cables. The ends though are cheap and work well. A custom connection would not be too hard to make so that the actual USB plug isn't where force is being applied.

I've done the hack version and just super glued the start of a cable coming from a keyboard to a case so that the actual connection wasn't stressed.

It might be better if they made it easier but it is a problem that can be solved.

You can build an enclosure with tapped holes to accept locking USB cables. Very common for camera systems.

Also providing a USB header on a high-speed expansion header is standard in the 96 Boards spec I think. https://www.96boards.org/specifications/

Stub length.