Not at all a dumb question. But the answer will be.

The Big Boss Man hated the way it looked. He once spent 30 minutes telling a graphics designer what a worthless piece of sh* he was where everyone on the floor could hear. Corporate equivalent of a terrorist.

> There was a Big Red Button acting as a physical power cut-out.

> Request was to remove the physical button and rely only on a software (touch screen). Death was a remote harm, but moderate injury / user stuck in device / panic attack was plausible.

Good on you for not removing it.

I work sometimes in mineral processing (above ground | below ground) with conveyor belts, crushers, etc.

Big easy physical power cutouts are everywhere:

Conveyors have "rip cords" running alongside, pull them and you can stop a 30 tonne/hour conveyor maybe before someone drwn into the rollers is crushed to death or maimed.

Crushers | screens | most big equipment has single OFF knife switch with "gang plates" that take multiple padlocks - if you and two others work inside a crusher you each put a lock (three in total) through the gang plates and nobody gets to restart the machin until everybody is out and has removed their padlock.

Big physical switches save lives.

He sounds like my wife/soon to be ex

Jesus christ. I assumed it was at least a cost thing

It’s not really important to the story but it sounds like someone with a lot of power and a knack for micromanaging got an idea into his head and wanted to see it through. The motivations can be many, including non-evil but fundamentally misguided ones, such as saving some $$ on the BOM or perhaps something as silly as making the UI more “uniform” with all touch screen interactions.

Unit cost probably.