[TeMPOraL]

They're still there, but in low-end / low power draw devices. In the past two years, I went from using pretty much no batteries to having ~30 AA batteries spread around various appliances, tools and child toys. Fortunately I recognized the trend early, and bought a charger and a large supply of rechargeable AAs. Now I'm in the process of designing a battery cabinet, because keeping spares and a charger around has become a logistical challenge ;).

[Too]

It's not exactly like i miss the old days of having AA batteries being spread around and that needs replacement all the time. It's more the lack of something with equivalent modularity, but bigger and with modern higher expectations on energy, power and charging. Like what we are used seeing in laptops, power tools, e-bikes, drones, cameras, torch, appliances, etc.