I called this a data grab from day 1 and stand by that. The amount of fellow iOS developers I've had argue for the "convenience" is astounding. There should be a settings toggle to control the auto-reenable behavior.
AirTags wouldn’t work as well if everyone’s phones weren’t constantly transmitting/receiving, for one thing, and grabbing data on all nearby WiFi SSIDs and beacons helps with location services and probably advertising.
Yeah, this behavior sounds a bit anti-user to me. The action pretty much boils down to,
"Oh, you disabled Bluetooth and left it that way? Well, we know better so we're going to turn it back on without your knowledge or approval. You're welcome."
I don't buy the convenience excuse either otherwise the behavior could be disabled if desired.
Option 1 is a reasonable explanation based on the behavior that arguably works best for 99% of users .
Option 2 is a “data grab” with no evidence or theories about who is grabbing what data and for what purpose.