Don't forget commemorative pins!
Safety. Courtesy. Show. Efficiency. Taking a step back, I guess I can understand this from a safety perspective, you can't have guests tripping on them (which is a maintenance issue and has been for years, I'm not letting TDO off the hook about that). Doesn't make me feel any better about their removal, but I get it. They stopped selling them a week before we went there on our honeymoon in 2000, otherwise we would have purchased at least one, if not two.
And... the commemorative bricks look cheap. Sorry, but they do.