And would Apple really have to get rid of USB-C ports to have USB-A ports? That really seems suspect.
I suspect multiple forces. First off, historically Apple has been prone to a 'moving forward' mindset dropping legacy devices and ports. They actually backpedaled on that in the notebook space; turns out occasionally they do what enough customers want.
Apple is also prone to prioritize form over function at times. Back when the iMac was their main consumer Mac, many of us would've preferred the option to easily upgrade RAM and SSD with 3rd party internal equipment, but oh, no...it was more important to make it
thinner! Yeah, higher total cost of ownership and less upgradable after the fact, but ah, look at that
style!
So making the new Mac Mini very compact might've been more important that making it a little bigger for more ports.
Second, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Like you, I've got USB-A port stuff, it's still common on the market, and it'd be nice if the Mini has A ports...but then again, I've got enough stuff that here's a good chance I'd have bought a hub (already had one) or dock anyway, for even more ports.
Some people in other threads seem to have this sentiment of esteeming the idea of 'the future,' and claim USB-C is 'the future' (it's not; it's part of it, but so will USB-A be for years to come), despise USB-A as a legacy port and want manufacturers to exclude it to pressure more people into converting to USB-C faster. Which is...rather odd to me.
That said, how many USB-A ports would you need? Even if they gave us one, what are the odds you'd end up buying a hub for more? There are people who'll need a dock so they can get more USB-C and/or Thunderbolt ports as it is.
What I wish they'd done was make it a little bigger and put an internal SSD bay in so users could add 3rd party SSDs way cheaper than Apple's storage upgrade costs. But that's a kind of 'courage' they don't seem so interested in.
As someone said elsewhere, Apple gonna Apple.
