Not much, especially since much of this makes repair etc more difficult.
Although maybe they could force iPhone in lost mode to loudly and constantly announce they miss their human, like a lost dog?
>It's absurd to not understand that Apple et al could easily (from a technical sense) eliminate cell phone theft.
I think the option to make the lost iphone make noise is there in the "find my" menu. So if you have another Apple device like a mac, watch, ipad etc. you can locate it using the airtag network (ie. not requiring cell service), have it make noise, or remote wipe it.
