[nine_k]

If you noticed, a ton of lexical material in Mini comes from Germanic and Romance languages, so even basic knowledge of English / German / Spanish / French is immediately helpful. Ditching the R/L distinction, or B/V distinction, or M/N distinction would kill most of this familiarity.

[Tor3]

Indeed - it is pretty easy to "get" the language as it is (for Europeans). But I'm sympathetic to the suggestion of ditching those distinctions - not everyone has a Indo-European language background. My Japanese wife still can't distinguish those sounds, even after a decade of trying. She has to watch me closely to separate those sounds. Plus F/H, which is also a problem.