I’m sure some people would buy a 16mm thick, 400g phone but I doubt it’s the majority.
I'll concede the point on the weight, although I bet it'd be more like 350g.
The argument is that you shouldn't need to pick one or the other. They got us used to the bump because it is cheaper and simpler for them to build. The same with literally everything now. No more striving for excellence, it's just "what can we normalize and force people to put up with so we don't have to fix the problem".
It isn’t a problem. That’s why it isn’t “fixed.”
The cameras are getting bigger because a decent segment of the customers want better performing cameras on their phone.
Either the whole phone would have to get thicker and heavier to accommodate, or you end up with a camera bump. And yes, some people would want that brick phone, but Apple seems to think it isn't a large market segment and the money they print from iPhone sales seems to point to them being decent at gauging that market.