“If you asked most owners of these e-bikes about which they’d give up if they had to, they’d probably tell you “take my 21-28 mph speed but leave me my throttle”.”
This seems like a bad take. Do most people really only ride on the throttle?
I’ll keep my higher speed and lose the throttle, thanks. How about a non-stupid firmware update that locks to 20 if a throttle is connected, and unlocks to 28 if there isn’t one?
Restricting either of these on the bikes themselves is foolish, and will only serve to hamper adoption of bikes by those who don’t know these things can be bypassed.
Just have road regs, like any other motorized vehicle.
All this nonsense is especially frustrating, since electric bikes/scooters make far more sense than electric cars, as most of car energy is for moving the vehicle, while bikes and scooters it moves the person.