As more and more remotes are RF rather than IR (and more and more of the things that have remotes can also be controlled by mobile apps), the utility of an IR blaster is dropping; while I, too, would like to see them come back, I don't really think it's likely.

I don't think removable batteries are coming back either; the current ones are serviceable, just not conveniently swappable in daily use. But the daily use use case of removable batteries is more than adequately served for most users by battery packs (including battery cases) on the market now, so it's too little utility to too few users to justify compromising other features on a flagship.