The lack of earbuds is a welcome change because the included ones were almost always shit. Either sound quality wise, build quality wise, or simply just the lack of different silicon moulds for different ear shapes.
I do miss the power bricks though.
As an aside, you’d almost always want more than 5w to charge modern handsets in any reasonable time.
Definitely, I agree. My comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I don't need new earbuds or chargers these days. 1 Amp x 5 Volts = 5 Watts isn't enough for modern phones these days, we need USB-C adapters with various outputs like 22.5W, etc.
Personally I'm OK with Apple dropping the extras. They were nice but now I have a box of old Apple chargers and stuff that I don't need, and I think that is what they were trying to limit.