And without all the things that make it useful as a regular smartphone. So why bother with it? Just use a real smartphone.

Have you actually put money where your mouth is by purchasing one of the 1" sensor phones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_sensor_camera_ph...

Obviously, we are seeing movement in that direction, but it's still being balanced with size — you can't fill in the entire large sensor with a "short" lens easily, yet avoid all the problems cameras experience.

It would be great if any of the phones came with an interchangeable lens mount for an existing system, but that alone would add 4-5mm of thickness (30-50% of a modern phone).

It appears that availability in some parts of the world may be difficult for many of those phones: many seem to be sold only to Chinese, Japanese, or Asian markets, and others seems specifically unavailable in the US.

It's also worth noting that, from a camera rather than phone perspective, "1-inch type" sensors, which have no dimension approaching 1", are very small, half the image area of micro 4/3, and less than a seventh of 35mm; they are around 16mm by 13mm.

Oh, certainly: but if people do spend money on phones with "1-inch" sensors, manufacturers will see it as a signal that people are willing to pay for ever larger sensors. How does one fit optics to illuminate the sensor is a different topic though.

"1-inch" is "1-inch vacuum tube equivalent". Micro Four Thirds is likewise 4/3 inch equivalent. Both are smaller than the nameplate size because tubes had rims.

Most of those phone are available online through grey imports at around MSRP(...of ~$2.5k). The reality is that there are no real demands to capture in phones with ginormous cameras, cameras without inherent obnoxiousness, and possibly cars without turn signal stalks, too, for that matter.