But the key reason for it is that it's a dedicated power port. That means that port is designed for that. You don't waste money allowing your laptop to be charged from any of the four USB-C ports. Like, who needs that?
Worse, those ports weren't identical leading to the advice to always charge from one side to avoid overheating.
I do find HDMI to be a bit of a strange choice however. I don't mind USB-C to HDMI/DP cables for this. Like you say, more monitors support DP passthrough over USB-C if not full TB.
The HDMI port is also 2.0 not 2.1. The difference? 2.0 can run 4K @ 60Hz. 2.1 can run 4K @ 120Hz. 120Hz continues to have poor support under OSX but it's clearly the future.
As for the SD card, I don't really use this either but this is aimed at photo and video professionals. Why not just connect the camera? Easy. Because you need to keep using the camera so it's far quicker just to swap out the cards and start copying.
A modern digital photo or video setup will have a camera with 2 SD card slots. The camera will write the same to both cards. When swapped out, one will be kept separately as backup. The other will be copied onto another device, which then may also copy that offsite. This way you immediately get 3-4 backups in 2-3 locations, which is a lot of redundancy.
USB ports have to be connected to the power system anyway because they have to power peripherals. Maybe it's got to be a slightly heavier connection to charge the computer, but I'm guessing the extra cost is minimal compared to a whole different fancy port with magnets in it and a whole different cable. Who needs it? People who don't want to carry around an extra cable everywhere.
Granted, it just bounced and flipped and sustained no damage, but I wouldn't guarantee you'd have the same luck.
People don't want to throw away their camera every time the storage runs out. They want mirroring between cards so the wedding shots don't disappear on a storage failure. So they can swap storage on the go.
Your strong assertions based on your limited understanding of other people's needs says more about you than Apple.
That said, I still like the additions. the sd card and hdmi are the only reason I even have a dongle most of the time.
HDMI: I guess it's good if you have an old monitor? My monitor from like 2015 has USB C and charges my computer while I use it.
MagSafe: I've never had a computer fall off a table. Seems like a weird overoptimization for an unlikely scenario. If you use it you've got to carry a different cable that you can't use for anything else, unlike the USB C power cable that i also use to connect peripherals if needed.
SD card: I've never used one of these. I guess it's good for professional photographers? Why don't expensive cameras just have 256gb of onboard storage and connect over thunderbolt?