I’m not sure they are ‘regulating design’ as much as fighting for consumer rights. Any excuse Apple had for keeping Lighting was thinly veiled; it was clearly profit motivated.

Making sure every electronic device sold in Europe, and by proxy the rest of the planet uses one standardised connector is a godsend. The amount of times I have to buy replacement DC adaptors or different batteries for the equipment in my lab is embarrassing. If it all used USB-C it would be better all round.

User replaceable batteries is a design issue and can easily be done. We used to have IP68 phones with replaceable batteries back in the day.