Mirrorrorrim
Hero
I am normally in agreement about all this. But I have taken a hard, long look from another perspective. Before I address each design element, I now think the primary reason to add something to the 2024 book is to make something Core that can be included in the SRD, and therefore riffed off of in Creative Commons.I don't see the need for the Artificer to get published a 3rd time... but would have no issues whatsoever with turning the Tiefling species page into a Planetouched species page that would cover Tiefling, Aasimar and Genasi (since we would be using the pagecount for Tieflings anyway.)
But then again, we just had Aasimar and Genasi reprinted in the Monsters of the Multiverse book, so I don't know how necessary reprinting those are either.
I will say though that I do not believe it is necessary to reprint something in the new PHB purely for "esteem" purposes. The idea that for something to be considered actually "important" to the game that it has to be in the PHB. People put way too much stock and ego into things like that.
The justification for the Ardling, Goliath, and Orc being reprinted in the 2024 PH tells me that they care about Core representation and some hole-filling. With Ardling out, the Aasimar can be brought to the core as the opposite of the Tiefling, which is really how most people see it anyway, as that's how they were originally introduced back in the day. If Ardling was considered, Aasimar is certainly worthy of the SRD spot due to its popularity, and they can tweak heritages within the Aasimar if they feel there is Ardling pieces worth absorbing.
I absolutely LOVE Genasi, and they are a species with interesting, deep, diverse design opportunities, like the Goliath, Dragonborn, and Tiefling. I believe they deserve to be Core in the SRD.
And finally, do the designers want Artificers in the SRD or not? I think some players want that, and I think I would be cool with it too, with tweaks (maybe test out an amalgamation of the old Artificier and playtest Warlock progression?). @Knight_Marshal also has a point in that the Artificer is the only class that has built in affinity for guns which are now in the PH. But the big issue here is the number of pages that the Artificer and 4 subclasses would take up in the book. It may just not have the room.