What you said is reasonable EXCEPT

The electrical code is extremely conservative, but that allows a lot of us
to be still be alive and our houses still standing after doing dumb things.
Since we will continue to do dumb things, it is best to leave the redundency
there.

Houses existed long before grounds were mandated, and continue to exist; but
a separate ground is a redundency that significantly increases safety. My
dryer has no ground (technically, practically it has no neutral) so 7.5a is
available to any one touching bare metal on it. No one has been hurt, in
fact maybe no one has been hurt on the millions of similar dryers, but
wouldn't it be nicer to eliminate the possibility by separating the ground
and neutral?

Probably the worst aspect of the OP's idea is that a user would have no idea
it was done, and would think the grounded conductor really was a grounded
conductor rather than a grounding conductor (yes, those are the correct
names). If he then does something dumb, there is no safety net.