Per your own link, they can be disabled via Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Widgets.

All setting Local Policies does is force them off and stops the user from re-enabling them in the Settings (which is likely a good default for organizations).

You set the group policy or Microsoft will reenable it on the next update (which is not what the user wants).

Group policy isn't a guarantee either since at some point they can just stop respecting it. I watched this happen with telemetry in Windows 7. You used to be able to opt out of everything at one point in time.

Now you need a Microsoft account to register even non-365 versions of Office.

My general experience has been settings < registry << group policy.

Microsoft will update settings in an update at a PM's whim.

They may break registry key bindings due to code changes.

But they generally don't break gpo functionality, because this causes issues for $$$ enterprise customers.

Downside: Believe they cut group policy functionality in <Pro OS versions.

In non-Pro/Enterprise editions of Windows the software still generally (though not always) respects the registry keys in HKLM\Policies, they just remove the tools to configure local group policy and (obviously) you cannot join a domain to set them through AD. You can still use third-party tools like PolicyPlus combined with the freely available ADMX packs that Microsoft ships for installation into AD forests to set whatever the hell you want.

I actually prefer it this way; now the key is associated with my account and not a particular installation on a device.