In reply to Rick Rottman.

Thanks for sharing your clear perspective, Rick. I can tell you that many of the people advocating for the removal of these buttons do in fact use the Visual Editor. I use it almost exclusively in fact since that's what my clients use.

As other commenters have discussed, there are some big differences between print documents and websites. Since the web is an interactive (clicky!) and responsive (shifting layout) medium, certain usability requirements and limitations/variations among browsers mean some print formats don't translate well on the web.

I do a lot of training of people with experience in Word that are learning WordPress for the first time (sounds like you know WP pretty well). The editor I provide clients is even more stripped down and I've seen very positive results with the sites they produce: https://wordpress.org/plugins/mrw-web-design-simple-tinymce/

Here's what I tell them: Formatting for print has different requirements than the web. When I give you a WordPress text editor, it's a promise that the buttons I give you will work well and help you make good usability and readability decisions—based on extensive research—for your site visitors.

The changes the WordPress editor made are very much inline with that view. I simply hope this helps your understand the view point of the decision makers a bit better.