No No No Bad idea to remove formats from the core. At least make it as add theme support and dont make a fancy layout cluttered button in the edit pages. Leave the metabox as it is.

I just started building themes based on the formats. It filles the gap between categories and theme templates. The latter is to present the structure of the page view and the format to grain the content part in the tamplate, without adding new themes.

For example, in setups as CMS, internal projects with cistom post types and diffrent layers of front end access, a small status format can be adjusted for the contents purpose in layout and script funstions. List formats in categories and make all image format posts open in modal etc etc.

The format UI make it possible to adjust the responsive desgin and views for diffrent roles.

This is a huge step back to remove the UI and the future of using WP as a cloud service and much more.

I agree formats is an overkill for users with default Twenty themes, but the few of us who extend the wordpress world, please respect the small voices in this matter

/ Jonas Lundman, coordinator and project manager.