I asked @ned 18 months ago "get rid of SBD" because it's too difficult to explain to new users, AND you admit yourself, "it's always broken"... but he could not extract the idea from the product at that time.
I don't believe there ever was a "product", just a test lab.
Steemit and Steem itself is a test lab, everything is a test lab. I think removing SBD is a step in the right direction. There are other stable coins specifically designed for this. Also caculators do the job just fine in calculating the amount of steem needed for any given transaction.